Winch Used To Unplug Combine Cylinders

Winch Used To Unplug Combine Cylinders COMBINES Accessories When a person accidentally plugs up one of today’s high capacity combine cylinders it’s a royal pain to get it unplugged and going again if the model they’re running doesn’t have a reverser Doug Miller at Miller Farms in Alberta Canada knows the feeling all too well He says a couple years ago they had to harvest canola when conditions were less than ideal because of a very wet and late fall season They were running 3 machines and when one of them plugged an operator and a couple helpers would spend an hour or more cleaning it out That’s when Annon Hovde one of Miller’s operators came up with a bright idea Hovde’s solution was to install an electric winch on a sturdy steel plate underneath the entrance platform to the combine cab When the winch is activated it pulls a large wrench that reverses the cylinder Power for the winch is supplied by the combine battery Miller says the solution can be summed up in just a few words: “All we did was put a winch on one of our combines to pull on a wrench It saves our operator’s backs and worked so well we put winches on our other combines too ” When a machine is plugged and the winch is needed to turn the cylinder the operator attaches the winch cable to a loop on the bar When the bar is pulled the wrench slowly reverses the cylinder The winch provides nearly 2 000 lbs of pulling power Hovde first installed a 3 500-lb capacity winch that spooled very fast and had more power than what was needed The next two winches they installed on the other machines had 2 000-lb capacity Now Miller’s combine operators can use winch power to turn the cylinder rather than straining their arms backs and shoulders They can clean out and unplug a cylinder in 10 to 15 min compared to nearly an hour or more with 2 or 3 people when it was done by hand Miller says he’s not concerned that a strong winch will damage the cylinder or anything on the machine He says belts will slip or a wrench will bend before anything serious would happen to the machine Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Doug Miller Acme Alberta T0M 0A0 Canada ph 403 546-2472

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