Project Xerion.

Finding a nice one lady owner Chinook is a bit of a game though.

Trying to sort the spreading arrangements to get over the crab effect is a real head scratcher. I could go into it all but my fat fingers aren’t too deft on the touchscreen so it could take about a week!

Suffice to say there are several ideas bouncing around the void between my ears. All of them time consuming, expensive and with varying degrees of madness.
 

brentnz

Member
Location
New Zealand
I was going to suggest the discs pivoting,but then your into all sorts of problems regards the product dropping in the wrong spot on the discs.

A swivel ring off a dumper would work under the body,shame not to use crab when you’ve come this far,I’d say it’s a must.
The tare weight is getting out of hand without more additions! Raising the bin height wouldn't do any favours for stability either.

Always thought most of the compaction occurs on the first pass, so might as well keep the wheels inline and utilise the four wheel steering at the headlands
 

Shovelhands

Member
Location
Sunny Essex
I know what your saying and agree to an extent, but when your rear axle carries more weight than the front it would definitely help to crab steer.

You can crab about half a tyre width without affecting pattern too much, Which helps greatly.
As you’ve got plenty of height to play with, could the spinner deck be mounted lower and still swivel enough to accommodate the crab steer? If so could you use some sort of flexible tube/chute to get the lime/material to drop on the discs at the same spot no matter what angle the deck is at? Does any of my idea make sense....?:facepalm:
 

fred.950

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dorset/Wiltshire
I know what your saying and agree to an extent, but when your rear axle carries more weight than the front it would definitely help to crab steer.

You can crab about half a tyre width without affecting pattern too much, Which helps greatly.
When you say it affects spread pattern do you mean it makes it too narrow a spread or can you just run an offset on your guidance?
 
It’s to do with the fact that one disc starts to throw material forward whilst the other throws it backwards in relation to the direction of travel. Difficult to explain but obvious when you see it.




As you’ve got plenty of height to play with, could the spinner deck be mounted lower and still swivel enough to accommodate the crab steer? If so could you use some sort of flexible tube/chute to get the lime/material to drop on the discs at the same spot no matter what angle the deck is at? Does any of my idea make sense....?:facepalm:

It makes perfect sense and is along the lines of my thinking, but if you’re not careful the drawbar comes into play. Making the discs cable to lift and lower AND swivel to offset is almost certainly above the skills of a bumpkin in a draughty shed with a welder and not much skill!

Don’t forget , it can’t all just swivel one way, because when you turn to do your return run everything is in reverse so you need to make it all reversible.
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
As you’ve got plenty of height to play with, could the spinner deck be mounted lower and still swivel enough to accommodate the crab steer? If so could you use some sort of flexible tube/chute to get the lime/material to drop on the discs at the same spot no matter what angle the deck is at? Does any of my idea make sense....?:facepalm:

Like a chute from cement lorry feeding into the spinner deck?
 

Shovelhands

Member
Location
Sunny Essex
Like a chute from cement lorry feeding into the spinner deck?
I was thinking more like a piece of large diameter flexible ducting? But yes, a cement truck chute type thing would work, but having the flexibility to move in both directions would be awkward perhaps?
With a bit of something more flexible, I think it would be more achievable?
The deck probably doesn’t have to be at much of an angle to be square with the direction of travel. And if there’s scope to drop it a bit lower, then that would make the job even easier.
 
Finding a nice one lady owner Chinook is a bit of a game though.

Trying to sort the spreading arrangements to get over the crab effect is a real head scratcher. I could go into it all but my fat fingers aren’t too deft on the touchscreen so it could take about a week!

Suffice to say there are several ideas bouncing around the void between my ears. All of them time consuming, expensive and with varying degrees of madness.
Take a look at those self propelled tankers the older ones in cat colours if they have booms on the back there’s something in place to square them up when in crab steer
 

tinman

Member
Location
Ulster
It’s to do with the fact that one disc starts to throw material forward whilst the other throws it backwards in relation to the direction of travel. Difficult to explain but obvious when you see it.
I was thinking along the same lines as Fred when i read about it first, just offset your guidance.
as you say, its difficult to explain and as much as i try to think about it im not much wiser.
straight line lime drops onto the two discs, they pick it up in the middle and throw/spread it out to both sides in the form of a quadrant so to speak so that's mustard.

the stupid side of me is thinking that with an offset then your spread pattern wouldn't be as wide and your application rate would have to change slightly to allow for what would be somewhat of a narrower spread pattern but with an offset on the guidance and not as wide a spread pattern it sould be workable.

in reality im quite sure you know this dosent work, but why not exactly or am i missing the glaringly obvious...
 

tinman

Member
Location
Ulster
im assuming it would be a thicker coat but not as wide, so reduce rate and keep the passes tighter.
of course this is all making sense to me sitting here in my armchair....:rolleyes:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Hate to be a dream-stealer, but TBH if compaction is the concern, gross vehicle mass is more crucial than any other detail.

Adding more weight to what is already quite a substantial vehicle, will really only give the 'impression' of less compaction IMO, unless it's only a matter of altering where the lime drops onto the spinners.
Having the whole bin on a turntable will simply add mass, or reduce payload, both of which would increase compaction overall.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I had a bash at making a little vane to alter the pattern for granular fert - I'll grab you a photo.
It may be possible to do something similar , but "steerable" with a servo, would be an interesting experiment to see if it would be enough to counter that yaw?
I know what you mean by one throwing forward and one backward, I'm not sure if you could cure that easily at all, with fine lime.
Granular fert is a much different kettle of frogs as it flies true if thrown true, just like a faster shotgun pellet needs less lead on a moving target.
You'd need the lime to fall on a different place on the spinners?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
20190912_172803.jpg
20190912_172811.jpg

Note the very slight offset, to compensate for different performance from the two spinner motors... the right hand one has the sensor which reads the speed for the computer to regulate oil flow.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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