Pimp My Maize Drill

[cquick]

So I thought I'd post my adventures in pimping my Kuhn maize drill for the upcoming season.
I use the drill for maize, pumpkins and OSR, where I run ahead with a subsoiler and follow down the lines with the drill. Sort of like strip-till but not quite. I'd like to use it in a truly no-till fashion for the OSR eventually.

When doing the OSR last autumn I noticed the slot closure wasn't perfect, so over winter I've been looking up American closing wheel designs to try. Of course importing was out of the question because I'm a cheapskate, so I found some suitable hubs, made a CAD model inspired by the Mohawk wheels, got a local laser cutter to cut some profiles from 12mm plate, and gave it a try. Some pictures from testing today. I think the results speak for themselves!

Next steps: Make some custom seeding discs for pumpkins, find a suitable opening tine for direct drilling, and integrate the drill with AgOpenGPS (eventually planning on electric drive for each row...)



Excellent slot closure compared to the rubber wheels going direct into some very wet rye cover crop:

Tried some 'half and half' which could work in good conditions, but I think will take a lot more setting up to get right, compared to double spiky wheels.

 

[cquick]

This mornings project: Custom seeding discs.
I need to make up some pumpkin discs ready for spring, but I also made OSR discs last autumn with the same method.
Genuine seeding discs are about £80 each from Kuhn, so over 10 rows that gave me a nice budget to play with.
I had my designs laser cut from 1.5mm stainless and bought a 3D printer to print the stirrers. I still had about £300 left in the budget at the end!

The stirring lugs are printed from ABS-like resin and cost about 2p each. They are a press fit into slots on the disc, and also secured with CA glue.

If anyone else has a Kuhn Maxima, give me a shout as I can make seeding discs to your requirements. I could also design discs for other brands, if the concept is similar. They should easily cost less than £20 each.

 

[charlie@horizon]

Hi @cquick

Great work on those home build projects, I think 3D printers can be a game changer for farmers moving forwards.

Have you looked at Precision Planting components at all?

Precision Planting | Upgrade Your Farm Equipment

Join farmers who Believe in Better™ and upgrade your planter, air seeder or drill, sprayer, combine, sidedress bar, and strip-till bar with Precision Planting.

www.precisionplanting.com

As the UK dealer for Precision Planting we can offer some awesome retro-fit options like Cleansweep, Deltaforce and Furrowforce which are designed to improve planter performance in scenarios like you're explaining. Furrowforce is certainly worth looking at; its a 2 stage closing system which collapses and closes the furrow walls with discs and then consolidates with a press wheel. The pressure can be adjusted by air in the tractor cab and if you want to get really technical it you can add a load cell and adjustments can be automated as condiitons change.

Feel free to drop me if you want to discss in more detail 07852794722