[cboyd]

Well this is our second year cutting with our 2188 and our second year with a rotary. We seem to be having a problem with rotor loss this year. We're running close to the settings in the owners manual but have changed things a bit to get the sample clean and to make sure were getting everything out of the heads. I think we're running the rotor around 850 under load and 1050 on the fan. We're running small wire concaves and the slotted grates. There does not seem to be any wheat at all being thrown over the sieves but we are geting some loss over the rotor. Other than the rotor loss everything seems to be working good but we have to slow down quite a bit compared to what we were running last year. What would you recomend changing first to try and get the rotor loss down. Would switching to the keystock grates help much? We dont need to worry about straw quality so if it chews it up real good it does not matter to us. Thanks
Chris

 

[ihdriver7088]

try bumping rotor speed up to 1000 rpms switching to keystock is not necessary slotted will perform better in most wheat conditions i dont know your concave gap but run it around 1.0 fan seems to be at the right speed but there a good jump off point for ya hopefully and see were that takes ya

 

[tomih]

Try third concave a large wire, normally this helps!!!

TOM

 

[redhat]

First make sure you have the machine full, next to impossible to properly set a combine that is not running full. You don't mention bu/acre, ground speed, concave clearance or size of header.
You can run a mix of keystock and slotted grates. Keystock is more aggressive at separating. Swap out one at a time starting at the rear.
Make sure you don't have the lower sieve closed too far versus the top sieve as it is possible to overload front of lower sieve and dump grain into the fan housing and it will appear like you have rotor loss. In wheat I usually have the front section of the top sieve almost closed completely. Don't be afraid to up the fan rpm some more either 88's need lots of air.
Use your grain loss monitor to help with rotor rpm setting, set monitor to rotor and as you increase rpm under load you will see the lights change and the needle as well. From your current settings see where the needle runs and adjust the sensitivity so it is in the middle of travel and increase rotor rpm and see if the needle drops.If so then your looses are dropping and rotor was set to slow. If needle climbs, losses are increasing and you need to decrease rotor speed, the same works for concave clearance. Setting the fan speed while watching the loss monitor set on sieves helps in finding the sweet spot there. Again it's important this is done while driving the combine under load and typically at capacity (full) at a constant ground speed. Good luck.

 

[cboyd]

Well the wheat that we are currently running in is averaging aound 50bushel. We can't get too much speed because we start to get rotor loss but we are able to run around 2.5-3mph is all. Any faster and the needle on the loss monitor goes nuts and we start geting a lot of grain on the ground. The concaves are set on about 1 to get all the kurnels out of the head since its thrashing a little hard still since its just getting dry enough to cut.

 

[redhat]

Damp straw, tough conditions... usually run keystocks to get max separation. Keystocks are fine as long as you can live with the straw length and watch the sieves don't over load when the straw gets more brittle/dry. Make sure your concaves are not plugging due to damp/wet conditions and are zero'd properly.

 

[cboyd]

Well, it seems that i wasnt pushing the machine hard enough to keep her filled. Ended up speeding the rotor up and playing with the sieves and fan speed just a bit more and got the rotor loss down when i got more ground speed. Been pushing it till the rmp on the motor starts to drop off a bit and seems to be working like a charm. These rotor machines have me having to totally learn a new logic to setting them compared to the 9600's that we used to run.
The problem we're having with getting the kernals out is just tuff thrashing conditions. The straw for the most part is dry, just a little tuff getting the kernals all out on some of the heads. Overall though everything seems to be working better now, got the ground speed back and got the losses down and have a pretty clean sample. Thanks everyone for the help.
Chris