Right , I'm going to be very careful how I reply to this , I answered a simple question on filters but obviously my answer was biased due to my rose coloured spectacle wearing bible reading support of Arla , so I'll try to answer with all correct terminology this time and maybe not get a 'plethora of abuse back
Yes I think robots are great , but even though their will be pages of me saying how I feel the Lely could do better ( just like their is with Arla ) I realize this makes me very naive to have been suckered into buying their robot and not a de laval AMS, I realise that the De laval is a far superior robot now because in your Balanced opinion you say so , even though just as with OMSCO you will never say a single word against them , I know now in reality we are the bible reading mushrooms .
Oh bugger I called it a AMS , is that right , I profoundly apologize if it's called a VMS , no doubt no one will know what we are on about and I need shooting down in flames . I also think Lely's support staff for break downs are superb but again while Lely maybe be broadly similar in numbers of staff to de laval no doubt they are just a heavy cost to us user while the delval ones will be 'an astute bunch with a wide and varied background as are the board. Cost effective! '
I see your going away for a couple of days , that is one of the great things with robots , knowing everything is getting done exactly the same when away and the ability just to have a quick check up on the computer (obviously when Mrs Sid is not looking ! ) to just put your mind at ease that everything is ticking along just fine , the added benefit of the delaval here is if less experienced staff are covering for you , you know thanks to the manual attach they can get every cow milked which ever cow/heifer happens to calve in your absence . So providing the back up is as good as Lely's which is near enough faultless in my opinion I think you have great robots that were probably very good value for money being 2nd hand, unfortunately de laval were not available when I installed mine and as you rightly say the cost of lely installed 2nd hand was so great it just didn't make sense to have anything other than a new Lely , which has served me very very well , but I do envy the choice everyone has today especially if the new GEA mono box proves reliable .
Have a nice break
You make some very good points there Mr Chips!
When we went in to robots in 2013, the choice was very limited as very few dealers were able to offer any sort of back up and some dairy engineer companies flatly refused to train any of their staff on robots. No doubt things have changed significantly since then but anyone contemplating buying a robot must ask about service back up as the first thing IMO. Of course, the longer you have the machines the better you get at diagnosis, repair and getting running again and we now carry stocks of stuff that a few years ago would have been an engineer call out and that is a good thing.
If we had a wish for Lely, it would be that they would bring out a stripped down robot (basically just a milking arm ideally) and forget all the fancy stuff like Pura & MQCC, milk jars and those horrible silicon milk bladders along with one or two other things. Oh, and have the CU run more than two robots
- we have the damn things all over the shop now and it's a right nuisance checking the chemical drums (IBCs in the near future) and a poxy vaccy pump & water heater.
