Baler capacity and acres/hr or better tons/hr.

dmiller

Member
Just wondering what sorta' production is out there and what is "normal" for balers.

I have a 336 baler. In 1 ton or less hay I can bale at about 3 (or 3 1/2) acres per hour. In roughly 2 ton hay I'm baling at about 1 1/4 acres an hour. How does this compare to others. In either case I'm making about 100 60lb bales per hour.
At this rate I'm feeding to where the hay is almost wrapping the bale chamber end of the auger.

Somehow it seems I should be able to cover more ground than this, but???? Baling 50 acres I've spent about 25 hours on the baler???
 
How many strokes are you putting into each bale? You can count them by looking at the right side (knife side) of the bale.
 
My 336 will make about 250 bales an hour - 45 lb or so. My 348 will do about 300 or so same conditions.

It's what 90 strokes per min, I like at least 10-11 flakes so about 9 bales a min x 60 would be 540 bales an hour but I've never kept it over 400 average. To much turning etc hooking wagons etc.

When my 336 was newer I tried to see what it could do, it will make 4-5 flake bales at high rates. Terrible to feed or sell though and easy to plug pickup doing that.
 
When dad and I did a lot of custom baling we tried to average 250 50 pound bales a hour.

We put 125 on a rack and would do two an hour if the barn crew kept us with empty racks.

I was 16 to 22 years of age at that time period. Dad was in his late 40's early 50's. Dad loaded every 3rd load to give me a break.

Many years we baled 40,000 bales a year loaded on the rack.

Best day was 1800 bales in 7 hours. I had help to load the last 3 or 4 loads that day.

Dropping on the ground a guy could average 300 an hour.

This was with a 275 New Holland baler. Still have that baler.

The round balers put our custom baling operation out of business. Thank God!

Gary
 
We bale with a 336 baler and accumulator. A week ago Saturday I baled 1094 bales in less than 4 hours. I'd say about 275 per hour. Bales probably averaging 45 lbs. Dad loading onto wagons with grapple so no stopping to change wagons. Stopped a couple of times to tie in twine, check bale weight. Field was raked round and round, so keeping baler fed constantly helped. Baled a three cornered field on Sunday and I know the bales per hour were lower. But better drying conditions allowed for heavier windrows and better formed bales so the tons per hour harvested was probably the same and possible more. You really should be thinking in terms of tons per hour harvested than bales per hour.
 
I'm getting between 10 and 13 flakes/plunger strokes per bale depending on the windrow.

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong problem.
If I go any faster in the windrow it plugs up at the far end of the auger. Would replacing pickup teeth make much difference on this. Would this push the hay further up under the auger?

Just have to be able to cover more acres per hour.
 
Are you running at full PTO speed? Some people don't like to run equipment at full speed. Your manual should list the plunger strokes per minute at full PTO speed. 80 plunger strokes/minute divided by 12 strokes/bale = 6.6 bales per minute or 400 bales per hour (gross rate at 100 percent utilization).

Look at how much time your baler spends running empty or stopped in one spot. Then try to keep it moving more to make more bales per hour. There can be a lot of run time lost for:
turning on ends and traveling between windrows;
changing wagons;
waiting for empty wagons;
lighter than ideal windrows;
down-shifting and up-shifting for hills and inconsistent windrows;
re-tying missed knots;
replacing shear pins;
unplugging the pickup;
etc.

A 50 to 60 percent utilization (up-time) should be realistic pulling a hand stacked bale wagon. Operations that drop bales on the ground and use hydrostatic transmissions to keep the baler near full capacity might achieve 80 to 90 percent utilization.
 
That's part of my confusion. I run at rated PTO speed. I go around in circles following a pull type swather. I drop bales on the ground and pick up later (we can do that out here where its dry =) ). I have a worn knotter and end up with a misty about every 60 bales or so. I guess I'm loosing more time than I thought on that.
 
I thought I was counting 10 to 13 as it was operating. I took a bale apart and found that the actual flake count is 16.
Is it possible that something (the belt tensioner probably) is loose and the auger can't keep up with the plunger? I know that if I feed it any more than I currently am the auger plugs.
 
When you say the auger plugs, what do you mean? If I put too much in the 336, first the auger moves to the top of its float travel and bangs on the stop, then if too much beyond that it stalls out.


Usually the cause for me is running pickup too low and it hits the ground stalling the teeth which plows up a big chunk of windrow as I drive that gets sucked in as one big blob plugging the auger.

I did have to adjust my belt tensions or something when I first got it years ago. I also had to fix teeth and sheet metal on the far side of pickup that hay gets fetched up in.
 
I don't think I'm running the pickup too low, it has a gage wheel and I set it so the wheel is about a 1/2 inch above the ground.
What you describe is exactly what happens. Auger rises up to its stop, then stops turning when plugged. Usually it happens when there is a clump in the windrow or if the row is just too wide, or if the hay is too dry and it just builds up in front of the auger but will not go under it.
 
(quoted from post at 22:19:06 07/08/14) I thought I was counting 10 to 13 as it was operating. I took a bale apart and found that the actual flake count is 16.
Is it possible that something (the belt tensioner probably) is loose and the auger can't keep up with the plunger? I know that if I feed it any more than I currently am the auger plugs.

Yes the auger belt can get loose or just plain ole worn out. Look to see if idler was ever moved to put pressure down on top of belt rather than pushing up on belt. Pushing down on belt gives it more grip on sheaves.
 

I had a bearing go on the auger on my 336. It allowed the auger to be higher at the far end than towards the middle. That would let it leave some at the far end.
 
The raking has to be reasonably even but the 336 is pretty forgiving I find.

Sounds like your auger belt is loose or worn/glazed. Sometimes the pre-compressor tines aren't set right either and lets the hay get away from the pickup teeth at the top.

On the edge of the pickup near the pickup transition to the auger area is hay catching? If it starts to catch there clumps will jam so the auger can't haul it away.
 

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