[coadman]

Picked up a 1083 corn head this week, so am about ready to try and pick some corn with my 2188 in about 3 weeks or so. I didnt get a manual with the corn head, plus I don't know much about picking corn. Last time I did it was with a rented JD 9600 with their corn head about 15 years ago. I remember on the JD combines I have had in the past, there was an adjustment on the drum at the front of the feeder house, as we had to change a bolt or something when we went to corn. Is there any adjustments I need to make on the 2188 for corn, other than having the appropriate concaves and grates? This combine has been cutting wheat prior to getting ready to pick some corn.
thanks,
Jim

 

[trakman]

Jim, the only "adjustment" you need to make is put me in the seat

. I wished I had some corn to pick with mine but I'm not "guttesy" enough yet to try dryland corn around here. Maybe next year as I'm summerfallowing alot of wheat acres because of rye. When I tried some corn back in the 80's, best I could raise was 110 bu......2 seasons later, a complete failure....0 bu. Was enough to make me a little gun shy about corn.

Did I fail to mention, if the crop is good, I sure enjoy running a combine picking corn! Have a farmer buddy in Nebraska that I've spent a few days on his machine in 200 bu plus and boy was it FUN!

 

[coadman]

Larry,
Last time I tried corn was quite a few years ago, yielded 70 bu, which I was tickled with! Tried it again the next year, and I ended up making silage out of it!(still came out ok with insurance and my cow herd). I have 600 acres out this year, 400 acres look to be in the 100 bu range(according to my crop consultant). The other 200 sat in some wet conditions too long and some is stunted, plus large hail on about 50 of those acres. Looking forward to picking some corn, and seeing how that works! I will probably need all the help I can get, making adjustments in setting the machine, and just "pickin'"

 

[mx110]

If I remember correctly you are suppose to lift the front drum in the feederhouse for corn. However, we never adjust our's and seem to get along fine. The reason for this is mostly because we jump back and forth alot between corn and beans in the fall and try to minimize the changes we have to make. I will list what changes we make and let you decide if ya want to make them or not. We harvest in Ontario and typically are corn runs in the 140-180 bu range, we have a 2588 and before that a 2388.

1. Tip the saddle on the feederhouse back so that the head hangs as high in the air as possible. This lets us lower the head more in short corn to get the low hanging cobs before running the snouts into the ground.

2. Retard all the veins over the concaves and grates. When we first got the '88 we did them just over the grate area and fought a bit of rotor loss so slowly adjusted them over the concaves also and found that each set we adjusted gained us about 0.2 MPH because of less grain loss.

3. We ran round bar concaves last year for the first time and loved them bought another set for the '44 for this year cause we liked them so much. Just allows you to run the concave more open and produce a better sample. We found the large wire worked fine but we had to run the concave tighter to keep them from plugging up with leaves. This lead to breaking up the cob more and getting some in the sample. When we ran large wire we pulled everyother wire. For 600 acres round bars may not be financially viable if you already have large wire.

4. We had been running 2 sets of straight bars on the back of the rotor and had some loss problems last year and added a 3rd set. This cut loss again and this year we are going to run with 4 sets on.

We also run the clean grain elevator on high and drop the knives out of the chopper.

We run the rotor around 300, concave at about 4 (If I remember right, been 10 months since I've combined corn and still 2.5 months until I get that excitement again), fan at whatever the book says or maybe 50 RPM more, bottom sieve wide open, and start with the top sieve fairly open and close it down until acceptable sample and minimal grain loss. We're usually able to run between 5-6 MPH with this set up.

Hope this helps or atleast gives ya something to think about.

 

[jdg]

Does this machine have keystock grates in it. Keystock grates work the best got corn. Beings it was a wheat machine , it may have the smooth grates. jeff

 

[michfarmer]

I agree with MX110 settings. Open up the sieves adjust the concaves not to grind up the cobs will give to a good sample.
There are 3 settings on th front of the feeder drum. bottom is for wheat the middle is for beens and also works in corn, If you are doing larger corn the upper0 may work better. Try open sieves the mx110 says. run rotor 350-450 and adjust concave for best cleaning. Ifyou hsvr them we alway use 2 sets of straight bars

THANKS BRYON
.

 

[okpanhandle]

I was wondering what kind of shape your 1083 is in. Since you're harvesting dryland corn make sure the deck plates on your corn head are close enough to catch small ears. If the plates are too wide a small cob can get caught between the plates and then that row will start to collect trash. I think we use a 15/16 socket (might be 13/16) as a gauge, but that still might be too wide if you have a bunch of small ears. The 1083 we got last year is pretty old, but the dealer put a lot of work into it. The only thing they didn't do was replace the deck plates and they were worn enough that there wasn't any adjustment left in them. We got through our little bit of dryland then replaced them before starting the good stuff.

Also, make sure the skids on the bottom of each snout are in good shape. After they wear enough they'll start pushing trash and weeds if you're cutting on the ground.

We used our large wire concaves last year (didn't pull any wires) and had a beautiful sample on every field. Very clean, no broken kernels, and whole cobs coming out the back. I can't wait to get started this year.

 

[coadman]

I am going to try and pick a little corn tomorrow(if tire man gets out early to fix a flat tire on combine(lol)). I was reading in the 1083 corn head manual, and it said to switch my reel speed toggle switch to auto for corn. But thats all it said. In the combine book, it doesnt say anything about where to set the reel speed toggle switch, but only said if the combine is set for corn it wont be used. So how does the reel speed switch know if I am combining corn or not? There are 3 posisitions on the reel speed switch, Auto, Manual , and I dont know what the figure means at the bottom position? Front drum has been set in the upper position for corn, so is that all that needs to be changed, besides the normal, roto speed, concave settings and seive/chaffer settings? Neighbor told me there should be a variable speed setting for the auger on the corn head, but I dont know what he is talking about?
Jim

 

[mx270a]

There are 3 settings for the reel speed. Auto (relative to ground speed), Manual (constant speed all the time), and Off (the picture of an ear of corn). All it does is circulate oil through the reel hydraulic circuit. If there is no reel on the header, like in corn, then there is no point circulating that oil. Just flip the switch to the off setting (the one that looks like an ear of corn). It will save a tiny bit of power. If you leave it on, it won't hurt anything.

-Lance

 

[coadman]

Hey thanks! I didnt think it looked like an ear of corn, but I will take a close look!(lol) At least I know I am supposed to shut it off.

 

[coadman]

I am in a notill operation, with that in mind, wouldnt I want the choppers to be working? I have read several posts, where people have advised to "drop knives out of chopper"?

 

[trakman]

Hey Jim........You say it dosen't look like an ear of corn???????are you SURE you are going to be harvesting in a "Corn Field"?.......LOL.....Hummmm corn, tall stalks with ears yellow in color hanging down, wrapped in a sack! This help?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Let us know how it goes tommorrow.

What Lance said about that switch is right. When I run my row head, I put the reel switch in the "corn" position.

 

[coadman]

Hey, another question. Since I am hooking onto this corn head for the first time, and the head and combine both have "field tracker". Will I have to calibrate the head/combine like it states in the manual?

 

[mx270a]

For reference, here is what the console looks like on a 2388. The 2188 is nearly identical.
http://lefebure.com/farming/2007/september/091307.jpg

Any time you change heads, you will have to "dial in" the field tracker. The height function and the left/right function are separate systems, so keep that in mind when setting them. You just have to adjust the dials to get the head to float like you want it to.

I'm not sure what the manual says on this. I know there are some settings in the A pillar menus, but we don't change anything in there when we switch from a corn head to a 1020 for soybeans.

A word of caution, a corn head is heavier than a grain head. You'll want to turn down the down rate on the hydraulics. Otherwise, the first time you press the down button on the hand grip, you'll remember.

-Lance

 

[gilly]

After hooking up the head get on level ground & lower head clear to the ground & hold the down button for three seconds. Then raise the head, at about half way it will pause for a second (dont let go of the up button) after the pause it will finish going to the top. Now turn the key off for a second then back on. Field tracker is now calibrated for that head. It will know top & bottom of it's "stroke" until you unplug it.

 

[coadman]

I dont have to go into the menu or calibration screen in order to do this?

 

[gilly]

I never did.