New 40’ DynaFlex Front for Massey Ferguson combines
Published date March 04, 2010
Massey Ferguson combines are set to further improve performance thanks to an exciting new 40’ DynaFlex front.
Designed and manufactured at Hesston, Kansas, the new 9250 DynaFlex front offers the ultimate in harvesting diversification by providing a draper front with a flexible cutter bar. Switching between crops is now as simple as the flick of a switch, which allows the cutterbar to drop to the ground and make the shift from harvesting crops such as wheat to low lying crops.
South Australian farmer and contractor, Tim Pannell, was tasked with putting the new DynaFlex front through its paces in local crops and conditions as part of a pre-release evaluation trial. “The new DynaFlex was put to work harvesting cereal, pulse and legume crops,” says Tim. “I was curious to see how it would handle a high volume of material and it was pleasing to see the new front power through the crop,” adds Tim.
Valuable feedback from the trial has already made its way back to the Hesston factory to form part of the new build structure. “We made a slight modification of lowering the pitch of the cutterbar, which meant the front was able to run along the contour of the ground scratching even lines in the dirt from the knife guards which is a clear indication of how well the flex assembly works,” says Tim.
The new modification provided a great test for the front as it was put to work harvesting white clover. “With the push of one button the auto controls keep the cutterbar consistently running along the ground which prevented any clover loss and also meant we only had to focus on steering the header,” adds Tim.
At the conclusion of the trial, Tim commented “The DynaFlex front is simple to operate and the design is clean and very strong. Without an adapter I can see the cutterbar easily across the full width of the front; the single piece reel improves feeding and most of all, the performance in all different conditions is outstanding.”
AGCO’s Harvesting Product Manager Will de Fegely says “It’s critical to ensure a new product is ready for Australian crops and harvesting conditions. The evaluation program provided a great opportunity to not only see how the DynaFlex front performs under local conditions but what improvements we can make to enable optimum performance. The evaluation has been a great success given that we gave Tim complete control to test and evaluate the new DynaFlex Draper from both sides of the fence, as an operator, contractor and farmer, and to get the approval indicates we are ready to release this new front into the Australian Market,” adds Will.
The front contains a cutting width of 40 feet using a dual SCH Epicyclic Knife drive system designed for both cereal and pulse/legume harvesting. The knife, draper mats and centre feed auger are mechanically driven from the combine’s feeder house PTO assembly. Right angle drives are achieved by either belts or right angle drive cogs reducing the horsepower requirements to drive the front.
The DynaFlex is adapted using lateral tilt on the combine feeder house which eliminates the need for an adapter and provides the operator with full control of the front in manual or automatic drive mode. The control of the cutterbar height and adjustment is hydraulic - one push of the feeder house lower button in the cabin automatically lowers the front to the preferred height. Using the feeder house lift cylinders, lateral tilt and the cutterbar flex modules, the full width of the cutterbar maintains constant cutting height.
Independent dampened tilt arms (Flex modules) are spaced every 30” (762mm) which provides a true flexible cutterbar. The tilt arms feature 8” (203mm) range of travel allowing the cutterbar to follow rough undulation successfully without any crop loss.
The feed auger is a serrated design with no retractable fingers or additional moving parts, with the centre feed mat extending further under the feed auger. This improves feed quality in a variety of crops and conditions and the result of the centre feed auger is reduced operating costs with no moving parts.
Converting the cutter-bar from harvesting in flex mode to a rigid straight line cutter-bar is simple; the operator can simply increase the oil pressure to the flex module cylinders locking the cutter-bar in the fully raised and rigid position ready to harvest cereals.
The DynaFlex Draper front is available for purchase through any Massey Ferguson combine dealer. For more information on the new DynaFlex draper, please check out the 3D audio introduction on the website at http://www.agco.com.au/ or visit your local Massey Ferguson Combine Dealer.