Combining popcorn

Do I need anything special on my jd 9400 to combine popcorn. Any tips? Thanks

Just get an old Allis-Chalmers All Crop '60', open the cylinder up all the way and have at it.

It worked 60 some years ago for us.

Stan

Yes. Pick up a 6620 put new rasp bars in it and drive fast seriously the wide gap in a 9400 does not make it the best sheller in regular corn let alone popcorn. You will have to drive fast to keep the machine full and the combine settings will be critical. In our area when a popcorn plant expanded about ten years ago 6620s were bringing a premium price.

You will have trouble with the JD 9400 in popcorn. The factory stock concave had 15 bars in it. This was up from the 13 bar concave on the Titan II series. This was a step back. The 10 series combines when back to the 13 bars.

You DO NOT want "new" cylinder bars. They will nick too many kernels. Any nicked kernel will not pop.

You want the cylinder speeds as slow as you can still shell with. Run the feeder house/corn head as slow as possible. ZERO returned kernels. Many guys take the return elevator door off and let it fall on the ground. It seems that the returned kernels are low test weight and damage when ran back through the combine.

They usually test the corn before buying it. They soak a sample in a liquid that any nicked kernel will take some of it up. Then under a black light the nicked kernel show up. Solid kernels will not take the liquid up.

Ran some popcorn years ago. Used a JD 6620 with Asherman bars that where half worn. Also helped with a used concave too. You wanted as few sharp edges as possible. The concave will still need to be flat and the bars not too worn. The smaller pop corn ear/cobs will shell harder than regular field corn.

That's interesting. Cousin went from 6620 to 9400 but we never liked the way it shelled corn. I don't think anyone ever told him the two additional rasp bars made it so touchy but that makes a lot of sense now. We were either splitting kernals or putting cob in the rank. We never ran pop corn but had neighbors that did. Most of them only did it for a year or two. Too much trouble with it. It never occurred to me smooth rasp bars would be better in popcorn

Was it just the 9400's or all of the oo series with the extra bars. That does explain why I get frustrated with it. I just thought it was my lack of experience.

We learner over the years a couple of key things with cousin's 9400. Set the gap to where it's just busting off of the cob and put the air to it. Fan speed 1100 plus and keep the air intake clean. We would clean the air intake a couple times a day. Drive fast enough to keep the cylinder full. It was always a great machine in beans. Other than being touchy for adjustment in corn also very reliable machine. Only saw it go down in the field once in ten years broke the alternator belt.

That's exactly what I learned to do in corn. I do have a problem in beans with getting half of an opened pod in the tank when I get to the end and turn around.

All of the 00 series had the same number of bars bars. The 9400 and 9500 had the same bars,concave, sieve and chaffer.. The 9400 just has shorter straw walkers, smaller bin extension and a smaller motor.

If the concave has been replaced you usually would have gotten the later style concave.

The 9000 series are touchy to adjust. You need to do one thing at a time or you will never get them set.

Setting them for corn.

1) Set the concave to where you are getting whole cobs out.(If your running corn only then many guys pull every other rod out of the factory concave. These allows the corn to fall through the concave faster and you will get less damage with closer settings)



2) The adjust the cylinder speed down until you are leaving some kernels on the cob. Then speed it up slowly until you have clean cobs.

3) Turn the air up all the way. Then slowly turn the fan down until you are not blowing any grain over the back.

When doing these setting you will need to do a power shut down to look everything over. If you let it coast to a stop you will not be able to see what is going on.

Power shut down.

1) Combine at your normal field speed.

2) Pull the hydro handle back to a stop.

3) Shut the key switch off right away.

4) As soon as the separator comes to a stop turn the separator clutch off.

5) Restart the engine with the separator off. Let it cool down and then shut it off.

6) Now you can get out and look at the sieve,chaffer, and straw walkers to see what the machine is actually doing.

7) To restart the separator when full.
A) Start the engine
B) Engage the separator
C) As soon as the separator clutch is fully engaged take the engine speed to full wide open.

I know this sounds crazy but it is exactly how you do a power shut down. It is talked about in several of the JD tech manuals. The engine dying will slow the separator down fast enough you can see where the grain is on all of the internal components. I never had to do this on the old 00 or 20 series but sure did on the 9000 series to get them set.

You can get them to do a good job but you have to take a little more time to set them than to older machines. They do much more of the separating with the air flow across the sieve and chaffer.

I also like the 10 series handles on the sieve and chaffer. The dial gage makes adjusting easier to repeat over the smooth factory handles/controls. The crank setting on the precleaner works better too. Plus the digital read out on the concaves setting is much better than the slide gage out the window on the 00s.


Setting them for beans is much the same with one major difference. YOU shut the precleaner all of the way in beans/wheat. If your getting half pods then I bet that your leaving the precleaner open some in beans. Then set your cylinder speed and clearance to clean all the pods but not crack too many beans.

I agree with Jd on the cylinder speed in beans. Also we always found that we had to adjust the sieves everytime we changed fields in beans. Frequently in corn too but you gotta knock them out of the pods in the cylinder. The 9400 was unforgiving in damp or unripe beans.

Also was running 20 foot head. All the machine wanted but kept the cylinder full.

Back years ago traveling up to south central Illinois in the Harrisburg, Ridgeway area to the Indiana border where the raised thousands of acres of popcorn in the 1970's thru the 80's, all you ever seen were Gleaner's and IH cylinder combines, no rotors, shelling popcorn. Never saw a DEERE or any other brand in popcorn. There must have been a reason because you saw DEERE and other brand combines in field corn and beans.

In addition to the good advice below, you need to have good auger flights, NO sharp augers. Sharp flights cut the seed coat and the kernels won't pop.

These combines are not "touchy" to set. However, the factory recommended settings in the book are abysmally poor. Once you understand how the combine works they can be set to conditions simply and quickly. The older combines had recommended settings that were fairly close but the 9000 series are terrible. If a combine is set to what the book says it will do a very poor job. If they are set to conditions they will do a very nice job. Mike

Pods are not hard to eliminate in these combines. If you are running the cylinder speed at "book" settings you will get pods, guaranteed. Get your cylinder speed up and tighten the concave tighter than the book recommends. You will get clean, unbroken beans without pods in the tank. Also, on my 9500 I never get under 1450 on fan speed on beans. And once the sieves are set they very seldom need reset. Absolutely no need to reset them "for every field". These are precisely the problems the factory recommended settings cause people. The combine WILL do an excellent job if you know how to set it. Mike

All-Crop, yep thats what I was thinking...All Rubber threshing surfaces...gentle on the corn.

Tom,

Thanks for the reply - it's good to hear from who I consider the guru of A-C combines.

Back in about 1952 our FFA chapter decided to plant an acre or so of popcorn as a fundraiser. Our place had a little patch that was unused. When harvest time arrived, no FFA members were around to help - funny how that happened, eh?

Dad was at the A-C dealer one day and got to talking to a man who raised about 100 acres of popcorn each year. He claimed to have to buy a new combine each year, as he wore one out each year.

Anyway, Dad came home, opened up the cylinder on our '60' combine and we combined the popcorn.

Worked like a charm. Don't remember how much we got.

Stan

Thanks Stan,

I love hearing old (and new!) stories of the All-Crops shining!