Hand-Operated Winch Lowers Straw Chopper

Hand-Operated Winch Lowers Straw Chopper COMBINES Maintenance 20-6-30 John Hoegl, Lloydminster, Sask.: "We installed a hand-operated winch on the left side of our two Deere 8820 combines so we can raise or lower the straw chopper by simply turning a crank. We lower the chopper whenever we want to drop the straw into a windrow for baling. A cable runs from the winch up over a pulley mounted on top of the combine and down to the chopper drum. We cut a hole on top of the combine to make room for the cable. We also made this modification to our Deere 7720. "When using our Deere 535 auto-wrap round baler we had a problem getting enough twine wraps on the left side of the bale, especially when we had to bale dry straw. It would compress, allowing the twine to slide off the bale. We solved the problem by converting the baler's automatic cut-off control to a manual twine knife control that lets us wrap twine around the bale as many times as we want. We bolted a chain link onto the end of the twine arm and tied a rope to the link that leads up to the tractor cab. We also turned the plate that engages the knife sideways so that the knife can't cut twine until the operator pulls on the rope. It lets us reduce the number of wraps across the center of the bale and wrap extra twine on one end. It works great and also reduces the amount of twine normally needed by about one third."

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