Weigh cells in seed hoppers

[E_B]

I see now that you can have weigh cells in Great Plain Centurians and Kverneland U-Drills, but are DD manufacturers missing a trick by not having this as a more common feature? I know that for those with data mapping and everything else there is VRA, but surely a weigh cell in the hopper would be incredibly useful for firstly just knowing how much you've got left in the hopper, but then also for automatic calibration correction to remain at a fixed seed rate?

I know that you can put a camera in the hopper to see when you are about to run out but just thought that a hopper weigh cell would be of great use.

http://www.grainews.ca/2014/06/04/seedmaster-introduces-auto-calibration/

 

[dontknowanything]

Cross Slot do it too.

I think it's a great idea personally.

 

[Old John]

Cross Slot do it too.

I think it's a great idea personally.

Does cross slot have a hot tub and sauna too?

 

[Steevo]

I'm unsure if automatic calibration would work on a drill given you're removing such small quantities at a time.They'd need to be very accurate weigh cells, and could only alter the rate every 15-20 mins or so I'd guess.

 

[dontknowanything]

I'm unsure if automatic calibration would work on a drill given you're removing such small quantities at a time.They'd need to be very accurate weigh cells, and could only alter the rate every 15-20 mins or so I'd guess.

Our spreader will do 50kg/ha at 10kph, which is 1,600kg/hr. The calibration works fine at this rate, adjusting every few seconds. I'm sure it works much slower than this too.

If we drill 150kg/ha at 12kph, 8m wide, that's about 1,400kg/hr, so I don't see any reason it could be adjusting at least every 10 seconds.

 

[Steevo]

Our spreader will do 50kg/ha at 10kph, which is 1,600kg/hr. The calibration works fine at this rate, adjusting every few seconds. I'm sure it works much slower than this too.

If we drill 150kg/ha at 12kph, 8m wide, that's about 1,400kg/hr, so I don't see any reason it could be adjusting at least every 10 seconds.

 

[clbarclay]

My experiance of a RDS Artemis is limited to a Weaving GD demo, but having put 8 x 20kg bags in the hopper and calibrated it I kept drilling until it rekoned it had metered out 160.0kg and it was pretty much bang on. Weight cells measuring whats left in the hopper should be better, but I'm not sure you need weight cells when drill metering units can estimate total used that accurately. Its not like fert spreaders metering flow through a hole, but then I suppose you could replace complex drill metering units with simpler spinner flow metering.

 

[H.Jackson]

Have found that a camera in the tank helps with practice, and a monitor which tells you whats in the tank to reduce errors a lot.

 

[York]

I don't see a rely need for auto calibration on the seed or fertiliser metering. What I see, especially when you are also metering fertiliser while seeding is the benefit of a weight cell for the fertiliser hopper. As you just fill in the fertiliser hopper and you can control, ok you need some mathematics capabilities in your head, if the weight loss in the hoper matches with the ha drilled. As most blockages come over the time in the metering rolls (have only experience with Accord metering,) when you have damp conditions. So you have a slight continuous decrease of applied rate in the fertiliser. the weigh cell under the fertiliser hopper is a very use full kit to recognise this very early.
On the other hand, once you get used to you get also more brave in the mixes you are creating and trying to get through the fertiliser metering side ;-)
There are ony few units which have fertiliser & seed hoppers mounted on weigh cells. Once you have them none will want to go back. Wonder why so few manufacturers offer this options. for me this, as a camera in the hoper, are just things which are distinguishing attributes on professional set ups.
For me much more a need is a automatic kernel count so we don't put in kg/ha but seeds/m2, which is the right way forward. Now this becomes a tricky bit, as when you are able to have on each row a sensor for counting seeds you will see how large the variance between the single rows on our modern air distribution system rely is.
York-Th.

 

[glasshouse]

I see now that you can have weigh cells in Great Plain Centurians and Kverneland U-Drills, but are DD manufacturers missing a trick by not having this as a more common feature? I know that for those with data mapping and everything else there is VRA, but surely a weigh cell in the hopper would be incredibly useful for firstly just knowing how much you've got left in the hopper, but then also for automatic calibration correction to remain at a fixed seed rate?

I know that you can put a camera in the hopper to see when you are about to run out but just thought that a hopper weigh cell would be of great use.

http://www.grainews.ca/2014/06/04/seedmaster-introduces-auto-calibration/

would have been great yesterday when driver forgot to put the slow speed lever across for fodder rape.

 

[chickens and wheat]

Im an ex Luddite, persuaded by the price of N to try a weigh hopper fert spreader, after one season I advanced to gps variable rate N spreading , I can safely say that the crops have never looked better
But?? does it pay? I hope so. still needs local knowledge to set the average N rate
variable rate drilling must surly follow a weigh cell drill, but its still vague needing an old fashioned farmers eye as to how many seeds/m2 as a base setting?
More tech ultimately means more work,but does it pay?

 

[glasshouse]

a weigh hopper drill would be great for those of us who work with bulk seed, ie no bags.
its quite difficuilt to get to grips with the seedrate , but hey its cheap.