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Anybody drying with the bindapt thing??

4K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  brazil08 
#1 ·
https://adaptiveagriculture.ca/aboutbindapt.html

I've seen ad for these in several farm publications now, wondering how they work, or how effiecient they are, if anyone is using them.

Everyone i know has been cut off for propane this past week, wondering if this would be a viable alternative for the time being?
 
#2 ·
All sorts of configurations like this get used. Have not used this particular one, but have used fuel powered in past and found that the efficiency was significantly less than propane at relative prices of different fuels we have around here. Of course, propane would be less efficient than natural gas. Big thing with this sort of stuff is having the right recipe that takes into account bin size and configuration/fan/grain type/moisture level/length of drying process and only way to really know what you doing is having an in-bin monitoring system.

Have no experience with corn/beans on this sort of thing.
 
#4 ·
Brazil is right about the recipe. I will expand on that.

You need at least 1 cfm/bu of airflow to dry grain. If you are at say 0.3 cfm all you are doing is pumping in heat and not taking out moisture. Guess what happens next.

I am finding that when I am running at an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 cfm/bu the 100,000 BTU inline heater with 5hp high speed centrifugal on 4 ft rocket is giving me a 15 deg C rise. Which is exactly what the GrainGuard literature says. I have a 75,000 BTU heater feeding into fan inlet and that gets me about 8 deg c rise or so I estimate (never ran just this one for long period).

Outdoor temps are - 10 to +5 last few days. Meaning I have a very hard time hitting anything close to 30 deg C grain temp. Meaning I can make use of all the heat to warm the air to push moisture out of the bin. Meaning I have no use for a t-stat. Now if it was harvest and hitting 25c and I was using a 350,000 BTU heater instead of 75 or 100k then sure, use a t-stat. November and December I am guessing the thermostat serves no purpose and so why not just feed flex duct into fan intake.

If you are only flowing say 0.4 cfm/bu then a t-stat would be good for keeping temps lower but then read my opening comment and understand what you are doing then get your recipe right so you aren't doing that.

Heated air holds moisture, moisture laden air is heavy. You need both heat and airflow to get moisture out. 20c air can hold twice the moisture of 10c air. 30 deg c air 4x that of 10c.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I dont know anyone who has set up one of these, was more just curious how they work as i'm seeing the ads for them everywhere it seems. Not a bad price either i dont think, 5k for a 400,000btu unit. if a guy had a small hopper bin it might be just the ticket.

i also found these as well doing a bit of readying this morning.

https://products.opico.co.uk/opico-products/grain-dryers/diesel-grain-dryers/

smallest one has a 400l capacity fuel tank putting out 2,500,000 btu hr. takes 5hrs for 5 point removal. Wonder how much of that tank would be left after 10pt removal in corn?

Very similar setup to GT ones made in NA looks like. also read on the gt website that they make diesel fired ones too in other parts of the world. I know diesel is quite a bit more $$$ than lp but it would be nice to have some flexibility sometimes
 
#6 ·
I rigged up a 350,000 frost fighter and just used an old wood furnace limit switch at the duct outlet to control the drying temperature.
Settled on about 25 degrees. The frost fighter is cycling at about 50 degrees about 3/4 duty cycle and regulators set as low as they would go.

The bin temp cable made it pretty apparent the frost fighter needed to be thermostatically controller. Now the grain temp is only hitting 25 and slowly moving up the bin.

If these bin driers were your every year drier that system would make sense. If it’s a one off the furnace limit switch is a pretty economical solution if your heat source is to large.
 
#7 ·
https://adaptiveagriculture.ca/aboutbindapt.html

I've seen ad for these in several farm publications now, wondering how they work, or how effiecient they are, if anyone is using them.

Everyone i know has been cut off for propane this past week, wondering if this would be a viable alternative for the time being?
Well I bumped into a old friend from tech school in Saskatoon just a couple weeks ago.
He was talking about this very same unit I think?
Sends the info to your cell phone.
I'm wondering this myself.
Just how good is this?
 
#8 ·
Unless I am understanding this system wrong it could be perfectly accurate in telling what temperature you are getting going into your bin and it really not that helpful. You have to know what temperature your grain is at for various levels in the bin to really get a handle on what you are doing.

It been talked about to death, but the bin sense monitors show you this and part of the bin-nonsense updates have involved transmitting this to your phone. I find I have access to computers with much better screens for looking/accessing this than getting another annoying beep/message on phone and trying to squint to look at it there, but obviously many people must feel this is a feature. It is, however, much better than manual, plugin to each bin type setups of last century.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I was wondering most about this thermostat.
https://adaptiveagriculture.ca/bindapt-thermostat.html
Mostly because on my smaller bins 1650 and 3000 bushels the heater running full on might be too much heat and would it not be better to have the unit cycle like a regular house furnace?
$1 litre fuel isn't cheap.
There is more to it I see adapter plates for the fan.
I have to find out if this thermostat is even compatible with the used heater I bought because it is not a Flagro or a Frostfighter model.
 
#10 ·
The airomatic system operates like regular house furnace. However, when you get down to temps -20C and lower(like we have now) you do not have to worry much about cycling and just need to keep fuel tank full as it would be a struggle to get temps over over 80degrees into too much grain - with 330000btu type burner anyways.

As per previous note if you using $1/l fuel through this sort of thing it not very cost effective. Propane up to $.46/l now and I will be stopping - helped energy industry out enough this yr.
 
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