NH 276 baler spits out a "mini" bale here and ther

Last weekend, I was baling some rough ground on a neighbor's land. My baler missed a couple of knots out of 200 bales using 7200 foot sisal twine. It previously went through an entire bale of plastic twine (about 500 bales) with no misses.

This baler is new, to me, this year; so I'm figuring out some quirks. Apparently, it seems that its knotters do better with plastic, and that's what I have lined up as the next twine to put through it, as soon as this ball of 7200 is done.

But, last weekend, it did something that I hadn't seen before. When I went around to pick up, (It's setup to bale onto the ground) I noticed a few very tiny, one-slab bales that were ejected right next to good bales. They had good knots, but appeared to be the product of an accidental knotter trip.

There were a few of these sprinkled around.

This field is new to me, and it's rough. Can a bump cause a glitch in the knotter mechanism, essentially tripping it prematurely?

Other than that, where in the mechanism should I be looking for play or wear?

Thanks

Certainly could be from rough ground. The star wheel rotates against a bar with small notches in it....notches would be worn with age and not hold tightly. Just slow down, more than the notches are being abused.

(quoted from post at 11:00:26 08/28/15) Certainly could be from rough ground. The star wheel rotates against a bar with small notches in it....notches would be worn with age and not hold tightly. Just slow down, more than the notches are being abused.

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I'll look at the notches in the bar for wear. The issue with missing a knot here and there seems to be the twine. Both 9000 foot sisal and 7200 foot sisal seems to catch on the bill hook here and there, causing a miss. This has happened on nice ground and rough ground, but never with plastic.

I did check the bill hook for any burrs and such. There don't appear to be any.

The tiny bale problem is only from this field. I have a very small tractor and bale slowly, but this was my first time in this field. It seems, by the types of grass to be historically wet, but we have had a dry July/August; so the clay is setup hard. To add insult to injury, it appears that I mowed it in the opposite direction of whomever worked it last...so their ruts are hard as a rock and running perpendicular to my path of travel.

I took the outside off last week. I'll try to mow the inside parallel to the ruts, maybe that will help...but I want to make sure that I'm not missing something that the knotter is telling me...as in is something wearing out or out of adjustment.

I had the same problem with a JD336. As stated the star wheel / notches are worn or out of adjustment not stopping the knotter mechanism when it returns to the home position. The knotter mechanism keeps cycling until it is stopped. Thats why soemtimes you have one or two or three slab sized bales in a row.

That is exactly what I saw. As I went around to pick up, it was good, good, good, good, etc....then I would find a good bale with two or three little slab-bales right behind it.

Weak spring on the trip latch can cause that and you hit a bump at the right time as it resets it trips again.
As for the twine some balers have to be adjusted for each type of twine and some even need different bill hooks so that might be the problem there. Also having windrows that are to big will cause odd problems I know I had that problem today with a NH276 and see my post for that

I had that happen once, got like 15 tied single flake bales, the star arm had jumped out of it's notch so it was
tripping and re setting after each stroke.

(quoted from post at 06:18:50 08/30/15) I had that happen once, got like 15 tied single flake bales, the star arm had jumped out of it's notch so it was
tripping and re setting after each stroke.

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I looked at my star wheel/arm mechanism yesterday. I didn't see anything really out of the ordinary...although the arm has some dings in it (really? how the heck does that get dinged up?) where it rides up and down on the little toothed pully. I'm thinkiing that I might try to clean up the edges a little with a file. Maybe the arm isn't falling all of the way back down to the adjustment collar (the little collar with a set screw that adjusts the bale length).

I'm also wondering if this (see picture below, taken just under the chain sprocket on the knotter) could be part of the issue. This looks like where the activation of the knotters actually takes place, and these two pieces only mate for maybe 1/8". Seems that a bump could pop them apart and activate the knotters. Is this the usual mating for these two parts???

The picture above was indeed the problem.

I took it out to bale very slowly. That inadvertently brought everything to a head. I think the 7200 sisal twine is too thick for this baler anyway, so a knot caught on the billhook. Then, because I was going so slowly, when the knotter skipped and did a single flake bale; there wasn't much of a flake there and both knots...from the previous bale and from the single flake bale...caught in the knotter. Knotter shearpin broke...the needles stayed up...the plunger catch mechanism engaged...so the plunger shearpin broke.

I pulled it back to the garage, turned everything over by hand to see what was what....undid the tangled mess under the knotters...replaced the shearpins...turned by hand some more...there it was.

I left the twine out for a while to turn everything by hand and experiment.

The little brake, pictured above was completely missing its stop now, so the knotter was trying to activate on every plunger stroke.

The lower pad in the picture has a slotted hole. I adjusted it upward and had my wife watch it while I turned the flywheel by hand. At first I adjusted it too high, so the knotter would never activate. Just a little lower did the trick.

I retstrung with the ball of plastic that I had waiting, pulled the knotter activation arm, turned the flywheel by hand and activated the knotters once to restring them.

It was dark by then. I'm thinking that it should bale just fine today with some new shear pins.

200 bales last night after work. All good knots. All bales the correct length. Very, very happy with that.

So, in the end, for this particular baler. It seems that the previous owner had setup the knotters for thin plastic twine (9000' polypropylene). Using the right twine solved the occasional miss knot issue and the knot catching on the billhook issue.

Adjusting the position of the knotter activation brake (for lack of a better term) on the arm that rides the starwheel pulley solved the issue where I was getting single slab (flake) bales.