The Combine Forum banner

Problems runnin FD70 in auto height mode when using wheels.

12K views 16 replies 6 participants last post by  Don Boles 
#1 · (Edited)
Opening up a new topic here, since this is important stuff, but the old topic was on the 880CF. Don would it be appropriate and possible to move relevant posts to this thread?

Don;

What stubble height range are you able to achieve with that setup? Are you only using knife angle to change the cut height? Does tilting your knife forward cause more down pressure on head which subsequently causes feeder to lift (with AHHC active)? Are you referring to the white float pressure gauge on the header that houses the AHHC as your 1-2 height scale? At these settings are you cutting wheat that is relatively uniform in height across the field or are the hills shorter/draws longer?

Our durum is down quite bad and find we are leaving anywhere from 2-6'' stubble. On Case combines, 2013 FD70/2014 FD75, I've just been running manual height, knife angle at A-A.5, gauge wheels at 2nd notch from top. Cutting this short and in manual in unrolled, hilly, rocky ground is very stressful, unnerving and takes the fun out of combining. I'm going to play with mine some more to see if I can get AHHC to achieve similar results to manual operation.
We're running a Case 2152 with a 7120 and a 2162 with a 7230. Both work in AHHC mode.

Yes the white height indicator is on the header adapter itself. What we do when we first switch to wheeled mode is to set the wheels to the third position usually. Then make sure our main springs are the right tension. We lower the header manually until the white height indicator on the header adapter reads about 2. If the wheels' shocks are compressed to about the half-way position, that's good. Tip shouldn't matter at this point but mid-way is fine. Then we calibrate the header, probably about mid-tip. Say B or B and a half. After that we lower the header back down to its wheels and when the white header indicator reads about 2 we press the auto height button on the console to program that in. After that it just works with resume and shift-resume. And as you tip or untip the header, the combine will adjust the feeder height automatically, as well as compensate for terrain.

I think we normally cut wheat at 6-8", usually with tip about B. It's always pretty darn uniform especially as the header floats along semi-independently of the combine itself. Especially when we cross pivot ruts. Combine can rock a fair amount and the header just stays put. That's one of the things I like the most about having the suspension in the combine adapter. And we can tip the header down to D and scrape in the crop when necessary, and the header continues to contour automatically. If the crop is really lodged we might have to move the wheels to send position. But we picked up an entire circle last year lodged flat. Except for rocks we never worried at all about things as the header floated along over hills and dales just as expected.

Hope this helps some. I can't think of anything else special we've done. It's just always worked on our 2162 and 2152 headers. We run a Case 7120 and a 7230 combine.

Owing to the recent rain the combines aren't out right now, but I think as you lower the header, once the height sensor on the adapter starts to move and become active (as the wheels start to take weight), the combine switches modes on the header height display from feeder position to header position somehow. I'll have to take a look next time we are in the field, which will be soon hopefully.
 
See less See more
#5 ·
Had the Macdon rep out during harvest this year to go over fd75 with me since I only had rigid headers in the past.. This is what I had got out of it..

Had the Macdon rep out on Friday.. He new his stuff and spent a few hrs going across header, wish he was there before I started because I had float wheels not set correctly, said Macdon will be releasing a you tube video on the 75fd models soon to refresh farmers yearly

In flex mode and cutting off the ground as say lentals and peas, float wheels are to be in highest postion, another words completely off ground in very first hole.. Using flex sensors to raise or lower, all skid plates set to closed position across header

Recommends b to c on the tilt setting of short crops, don't use D as it will grab rocks..this angle will also change your ahh setting, reel pitch setting to be 1 or two for short crops, use Macdon tool and make sure both sides are in the 2.5 to 3 setting on either direction with adapter in lock postion, then check in flex mode and make sure both wings up and down are simalar with Macdon tool, change linkage if nessicary

In off the ground cutting or rigid, still keep header on flex mode on pro 700, with sensors enabled, run tires in second to third postion depending on required cut height and try in run ahh in the 2 to 3 Window.. Adjust it with the tilt to get desired height, set raise rate and drop rate on monitor to your liking

Rep mentioned you can run off of flex mode and off the ground, but need to tighten springs, he said he would first recommend trying rigid

Spacing between the two half knives in the middle crossover section should be no more than a credit card width apart and found mine to need adjustment, excess play drops blade life quickly, also said less than one inch of back and forth motion on front feeder drum and chain needs adjustment, replace chain every 400 hrs

Said the stupid shields on the ends or for overseas and shipping in containers, lots of unhappy comments over that..

They have been very pleased with the results of the fd75 and customer feedback, they did some upgrades on this header over older model, they now in reverse also have knife section go backwards, also upgraded seedloss center canvas
 
#6 ·
Only thing we hate about the fd75 is when we cut cereals you can't use the auto pressure to contour a certain height have to do it all manually.

We also straight cut canola and the new holland has a much larger feeder drum than macdon so would be better.
I don't follow, what do you mean you have to do it manually?

I gather you haven't actually cut canola yet, one should never assume a header will work good until it's actually tried, regardless what it "looks" like.
 
#7 ·
You can't use auto height on cereals with a macdon with our cr 9090s. The new holland has hockey sticks on bottom so say I want to cut my durum at 8 inches the feeder house can adjust to the land. With macdon you have to press the up or down over hills. Your right don haven't straight cut canola with this header just the macdon. But it looks promising. By integrated I mean the combine knows what the header is doing from the sensors.
 
#9 ·
Cut lots of canola in the past with the forty and forty five foot macdons, we run pea augers and header does a beautiful job with no balling up at the feeder house.. Run reel pitch on least aggressive pitch and nice and slow.. Loses are minimal with the seed loss kit on canvases
 
#10 ·
Posting on the new thread. I had everything set like Torriem had said it should be. I am in "hole position 3" according to legend on side of gauge wheels. I think I called it "2" in the other post. Position 1 would be with wheels not touching the ground at all.
The thing I neglected to do after the lentils and dropping the gauge wheels was to recalibrate the header! I also read in instructions that the knife tilt for a NH combine needs to be in position D during this calibration so I did that as well.

It does now calibrate and I do get the squiggly line under the header in the monitor. Several things I don't follow. My combine has no "Header lateral float" (install or not installed option). I fail to see the significance of this option as I assume it is referring to the feeder tilt option which should have nothing to do with the calibration or operation as it is never used on a Macdon to adjust anything in AAHC mode and neither are those buttons activated during calibration. The other option I am not sure about is whether I should set the frame setting to rigid from flex or if it plays a role in the calibration at all? I do have the "Auto float" set to installed.

Macdon instructions tells me Header lower rate should be set to "50" (maximum is 250 on monitor) and height sensitivity set to "200". Does anyone have success running a CR with this? Maybe my mechanical stone trap and lengthened out feeder house is affecting this? My point here is that if I go through any dip in the field, the reaction time is so slow that by the time the header lowers itself I am above the heads and my 6-8" cutting height is not maintained. Changing the lower rate to 250 does not seem to significantly improve this response rate. I was playing with it at 4 mph and I can't get enough reaction out of the system. I don't know if every time I change these settings I need to recalibrate the header with these new parameters or not? My real forward travel speed is closer to 6.5 mph and there is no way header can ever react to keep my header "in the crop" unless I still have something set wrong!

If my ground is flat (then it all works fine) and then I really don't need AHHC in the first place!! If the white 0-4 indicator is driving this AAHC, I can see issues with reaction times with my combine, the white indicator has a tendency to be bouncing around. If the voltage coming from that is driving my header height, I can see where there can be issues and it has a mind of its own!

To me, trying to make an adjustment from a pot on the adapter frame and have it work 20 feet out is next to impossible. How they get an accurate height out of that is beyond me. It would be much better if you had the pot built into the gauge wheels so you can get a real response from the header. Or as someone had mentioned you drag a sensor on the header itself *like a NH one does) and input that into the software. That is my opinion.
 
#15 ·
I have never cut and pasted posts. Won't that affect the order so it would be like me pasting a new post? Rather than keeping a chronological order to what was listed before? It could get very confusing as some of the old posts have had responses already!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top