[Don Boles]

Ok.
Then I got nothing for you.
Sorry.

 

[sneeky]

****! had me all excited! Just waiting for that really simple thing that makes me feel really silly but fixes my issue.

 

[sneeky]

Just wondering, does anybody use the extra weight package for these drills?

 

[madsnake]

Mate, I have nothing to offer with the issues you are having but I sure would be pissed off if it was me by now. Realy do fell or you.

Madsnake

 

[bigblockford390]

Just wondering, does anybody use the extra weight package for these drills?

The weight package is used if you have turned up the frame pressure high enough to keep the machine in the ground that it starts to lift the front main tandem wheels off the ground. Adding the weight kit can reduce hydraulic pressure requirements by 400 PSI I believe (for the frame setting) and will keep the front tandem wheels back on the ground. Since it reduces the hydraulic pressure requirement needed to keep the machine in the ground you can add more hydraulic pressure to put more down force on the frame sections before it begins to lift the front wheels off the ground.

Now that you slotted the holes for the press wheels and went though and zeroed them out, what is the symptom you are seeing in the field? When you zeroed them out were they all touching the ground at the same time with each row unit being set to the same notch on the depth stop? Did it improve the seed placement between row units? If so how much improvement? How fast are you traveling? With the factory CNH openers they really throw a lot of dirt to other row units, especially when you get above 4.5 MPH in the field. With single shoot openers such as Bourgault Tillage Tools openers you can get up to around 6.5 MPH before it seams to throw too much dirt. This is more noticeable on drills with 10 inch row spacing compared to machines with 12 inch row spacing.

Have you verified the air pack is routed correctly to each opener? The fertilizer side of the CNH opener is around 3/4 of an inch deeper than the seed side and I had a dealer last year put the seed tubes on the fertilizer side of the openers and could never get shallow enough on the setting because it was 3/4 in deeper than what it should have been.

Operating range on the pneumatic press wheel is 10-20 PSI, the closer to 10 you can get it with out rolling the tire off the rim seems to work the best.

I should also ask if you noticed before you sloted the wholes for the press wheels did you try to put the machine on concrete and see if they were off between row units?

Jeff

 

[sneeky]

Thanks for the further information Jeff, you have been a great help and its really appreciated.

Had a bit of success yesterday. After levelling all of the openers with the slot at first we thought there was still the same issue, but after a little while I went back through the process (as I had done before we slotted the press wheels) of running the machine at different wing and opener pressures and soon found that the machine started to work pretty darn well with an opener pressure of 60% and a wing pressure of 50%. I was running it higher to start with after we had slotted the press wheels and it did seem to be lifting the main front beam.

We don't have an area of concrete out side to test perfect levelling, but we have an area of very level ground and when we were adjusting the openers with the slot we used a jig that was pretty long to get it as accurate as possible. To give you an idea of how different each opener was we have some opens set at the top of the slot and some set at the bottom! As it turns out the openers in the middle were actually the openers that were correct, so the other 85% or so were wrong! With a little fine tuning we will have each opener dead level. So, putting the slots in the machine helped enormously.

We now seem to be having another problem. It appears that these machines don't like different soil conditions in a paddock. In any sort of wheel tract left by the spray rig, or in ground that's a little harder or softer the opener just seems to lift up and wont penetrate the soil. When we had a closer look at the standard Flexicoil point we realised that the seed wing of the point looks like it actually acts as a "sled". We think that this can't be helping the point engage the ground consistently. We are also starting to feel that more weight may be needed. Our next step is to try some more weight and try some different points to see if we can make it handle varying ground conditions. I must stress here that the soil conditions we are talking about are not extreme, our previous 820 bar had no troubles what so ever in these sort of conditions.

At the moment we are not putting seed in the ground. It has been that far off that we simply look at how deep the trench in the ground is.

The machine is on 12 inch spacings and I have tried speeds from 2mph to 6mph.

 

[bigblockford390]

There is a shim kit available though CNH parts (enough parts to do all row units), its an appoximitly 1/8 inch thick plate and two self tapping screws and it attaches to the row unit. Its a little hard to explain but I will do my best, look at the tow unit where the hydraulic cylinder attaches to the row unit, it is actually hooked to a cam mechanism that connects to the shank/opener assembly and when the hydraulics engage it pushes that cam and shank/opener against the back part of the row unit where the arms that you just machined slots in attaches to. The shim attaches to the back part of the row unit, where the cam pushes against it and it changes the angle of attack on the shank/opener assembly by not letting it go into the full forward position when engaged but rather keeps it tilted back a little. It would be very easy for you to make them, the plate is not flat, but has a slight bend to it and it will make sense when you look at the row unit where this piece goes. The screws go on one side of the bend to attach it to the row unit and the other side of the bend is where the cam mechanism pushes against. You might try to make some and see if it helps keep them in the ground. Think of the row unit pressure as the old fashion spring type shank drill, that is the pressure at which the opener trips out of the ground. 1450 hydraulic pressure is like a 550 pound trip on that drill. The frame pressure is what keeps the entire machine in ground. I forget how much the CNH weight kits weight, there is different weights weather its a 10 foot frame section or a 15 foot frame section and they attach just in front of the rear carrying wheels in the A-frame area of the frame section.

It may help you keep the openers in the ground when you go though those changes in ground condition. The kits were made when these drills were first launched here in the states to tip the opener back to keep them from plugging the mud but it might help with your situation too.

I am personally not a fan of the CNH openers. I think there are better choices on the market, at least over here in the states. I am not sure what you have available to you over there. I really prefer the Bourgault Tillage tool openers, they have replaceable tips, narrow bodies which helps with less soil movement and are built nicely. Dutch makes a decent opener but it is wider and can move more soil and its angle of attack to the ground is different and my experance has been they are harder to keep in the ground. Atom Jet makes one but like the CNH its all welded together with no replaceable parts. The down side is it is fairly expensive to swap out double shoot openers.

Jeff

 

[sneeky]

Thanks Jeff. I really appreciate your suggestions and knowledge. I will keep you posted on how we get on. As I said before, I have been getting great support here and with your input im sure we will sort it out. Only thing really missing is a rain at the moment!

Regards,
Pete

 

[normmm]

p2070

We have had the dealer here for 6 day longs hours and the cant get the dam thing to fold and unfold correctly keeps releasing the left wing lock. Our seeding depth was pretty good we set the tire track openers a little deeper. In worked ground it sucked we had to go like 2mph We are using the factory side band openers. Kinda wish woulda just bought a 5000 flexi.

 

[bigblockford390]

We have had the dealer here for 6 day longs hours and the cant get the dam thing to fold and unfold correctly keeps releasing the left wing lock. Our seeding depth was pretty good we set the tire track openers a little deeper. In worked ground it sucked we had to go like 2mph We are using the factory side band openers. Kinda wish woulda just bought a 5000 flexi.

I came across a 50 foot machine that would do the same thing you are talking about, when folding the right side back the left side would release and get too far away from the sensor and shut down the fold process. The dealer loosened up all the mounting bolts up front where the whole latch mechinism was with the hydraulic cylinders and was able to move it and when it was re-set even though the left side lock jaw still moved a little it was not enough to allow the draw tube to go back away from the sensor. You might look at that and see if it helps you out at all.

I should add the first two years of production the lock jaw mechinism was bolted to front hitch via U-bolts. Some time in 2012 they switched to a plate that was welded to the hitch and a plate welded to the lock jaw mechinism and they simply bolt them together. The machine I worked on had the older style U-bolt so we could move it. The U-bolts were removed in favor or plates and bolts to keep from cracking the frames where these pieces all bolt together. There is a kit that can convert older machines to the new style bolt on pieces, plus it adds another cross brace between the left and right side of the front hitch.

Jeff

 

[sneeky]

Well, another day of trying to figure this one out. We are sure that the issue is now with the factory flexicoil points. THEY JUST WON'T DIG!!! We put another point on one of the openers and difference was staggering. We are now going to get a few different points from Dutch and Bourgault and see which one gives us the best result. What the original points are doing is just running along a certain hardness in the ground and depending on how deep that "harder" soil is, that's where the depth of the opener is bottoming out. Also noticed that we were getting soil throw at 7km/h! Pretty poor considering I could do 10 or 11km/h with the old flexicoil 820 before I was getting the same amount of throw, hmmmmm I thought that buying a 60ft machine over a 40ft machine would let me cover more country, not so with the original points. The weight kit also made a difference, don't actually have one just put the equivalent weight on it with tractor weights. so, I think with the new slots drilled in and the openers levelled, with a weight kit and aftermarket points we will have a machine capable of doing what it said it would do.

Has anyone got some thoughts on Dutch or Bourgault points? we will be trying a fair few variants.

Thanks again to our dealer and flexicoil guys. While we have been having issues its been great to see some real customer service and backup!!! It really does make a difference.

I'll make an effort to get some pics and video of the different points in action.

 

[normmm]

We are about to get new openers for our p2070 have factory now. Interested in what you find with diferent openers i was considering the bg sideband i seen at leth ag show. Was hoping the openers would get thru this season but looks like not going to happen.

 

[sneeky]

Well, can't get hold of any bourgault openers. Got my hands on the Outlaw series from Dutch today. They look promising.











The last photo is the original flexicoil opener. Above that are the two Dutch openers that I have so far. Both 3.5 inch, one a straight knife point and the other an inverted T. Time to go and see what they do.

Tomorrow I should have the 5 inch versions of these two points.

 

[bigblockford390]

Keep in mind you have a press wheel that measures 4.8 inches wide and it is what sets depth, the relationship between the bottom the press wheel and the bottom of the opener. One should not run more than a 3.5 inch wide openers. You need a hard un-disturbed surface for the press wheel to ride on, if you carve out a 5 inch wide hole the press wheel is going to keep dropping down which will affect seed placement in a negitive way. With a 3.5 inch you still have some hard surface for the press wheel to ride on and keep better control of the seed depth.

Jeff

 

[sneeky]

Sorry Jeff, The 3.5 inch and 5 inch is referring to the length of the point and not the width.

 

[sneeky]

Well........these points make a HUGE difference! They dig very well and keep their depth consistently. I think we are on a winner, they even kept their depth on a hard dirt road! I will take a few pics tomorrow and do more of a write up about them, but just really happy that it looks like we have a machine that is going to do a great job.

 

[sneeky]

The following picture is a great example of the problem I was have with the Flexicoil points not penetrating. This was done in a hard area of the field which really highlights the problem. You can see in the middle where it hits a harder patch and the openers just ride up. The Dutch openers just kept a consistant depth through ground like this.



The next picture compares the knife point against the flexicoil point. They should be sowing at the same depth, little hard to see in the pic but the knife points at the bottom of the picture were about 3/4in deeper.



The next two pictures are of the furrow left by the knife and inverted T points from Dutch. Not too hard to work out which one is which. They both dug well to the same depth.





The next picture shows what happens when you plant at 11.5km/h (7.2mph)! The two rows on the far left are the new knife points and the rest are the flexicoil points. They were sowing at the same depth. As you can see the flexicoil rows are nearly completely covered in while the knife points just have the odd small clod in them. The conditions are pretty dry and as such clods were coming up, I seriously think that in good conditions you could probably reach 12.5-13km/h with the knife points before soil throw was a serious problem. The Flexicoil points would only let me get to about 7km/h before throw was an issue in these conditions. To put that another way, the knife points would let me do an extra 8.2ha/h (20acres/h)!!!!! Now that's a big difference!!




The two pictures below are of the 5in knife and 5in inverted T points. These do exactly the same job as the shorter versions, they just allow you go a lot deeper. They will be great for moisture seeking. The only thing to be aware of is that at the highest depth setting on the row units these points are still putting about 2in of soil above the seed. This is if you are only single shooting with them and not suing a seed boot.





I will most likely get both the long and short versions of the knife point to allow me to plant shallow and moisture seek while just using the machine in single shoot mode. I will have the option to go back to dual shoot if the situations requires it as well. The inverted Ts did a good job as well, they just threw a little more soil (still a lot better than the flexicoil points) and they are sure to use more hp and fuel. Hopefully will have a set on the machine in the next few days and all should be sweet!

 

[sneeky]

Just a quick little update for those that are interested. Have now got the dutch openers on the machine and its seriously a different machine. I will do a bit more of a write up on them when I get a chance. Over the last few days I have been trying to level out the openers with the little slot that has been cut into the press wheel arm. It appears that the poor penetration of the flexicoil points in our conditions was hiding just how much difference there really is between the row units. At first we thought it was about 3/4in but since we have put the dutch points on allowing the row units to achieve their set depth we have discovered that the difference between an extremely shallow row unit and an extremely deep row unit is actually around 2.5- 3in!! What that means is that I can't actually get the machine level by just using the adjustment slots in the press wheels, I have to max out that adjustment and then set those row units at a different depth using the normal depth adjustment on the row unit. At least by doing this I get it level and go sowing. Will have to sort it out when we have finished this years winter cropping program.

 

[Lach]

Sneeky,
You are one patient man! I hope you are being looked after during all of this by the head honchos at flexi coil. I reakon I would have told them to come and tow it away by now.

I am sure when you have it sorted, it will be a great unit

Lach

 

[rusty1]

Good on you for sticking with it and sharing your findings with everyone.
I know a guy that bought one last year and he took it back and told them to stick it.
Glad to hear you're figuring it out. I can't believe such a poor machine was released, what is happening to flexi coil they used to be market leaders?
I like my flexi coil cart it's been good to us for 13 seedings now but sometimes I wonder where they are headed.

Russ