Great Video, I agree with a towed forage harvester horsepower is king, you see the jf stools where they are using 300-500 hp tractors they put the forage through, thanks for sharing
Bought 3950 jd last year with electric over hydraulic, is a pain but lot more power available if can turn flow on and off as needed. Don’t have big enough tractor to drop 20-30 hp into that hydraulic flow just for controls.
Hey Mac! Yes the blower is directly behind the cutter head. This allows for the crop processing rolls to be equipped in line for kernel processing! Thanks for watching and commenting! -Alex
@@theatlanticdairyman7917 see now look how far ahead of its time the 860 Gehl was with that setup. Tell you what, you bring that FP230 with its antiquated cross auger feeding the blower down here and I’ll keep it as a spare, in return you can have our two, advanced technology 860 and 865 Gehl harvesters 🤣🤣🤣
Great awesome video, love that dion kemper head , doesn’t mattter which way u go , great awesome machine , like every machine always good points and bad, in-line is the way to go , service ability is awesome;
Yes! The kemper-style head was a real advantage this year because the field was a little wet in spots and that head allowed me to chop whichever way suited the field. Thanks for watching and commenting! - Alex
Yes the straight-thru design definitely allows a lot more crop through easier and therefore the tractor doesn’t need to work as hard. Thanks for watching and commenting! -Alex
@@theatlanticdairyman7917 Ok, thanks. I've been looking at some used listings, just for more capacity. We're currently running a 12-foot UFT wagon that still works good but I'd like something bigger and these 9015s are about the only option anymore. Does yours have a stabilizer on the front axle or just the ballast box?
@@captaindee6130 Yes it has stabilizers on the front axle as well as the ballast box. I would also suggest looking into the Horstline/Whitewater Welding high dumps. They also seem well built.
@@theatlanticdairyman7917 Oh man I would love one of those Horstline wagons. I have looked at them pretty close already but they're pretty rare. I'm guessing they're built to order. I like their mentality - it's pretty much go big or go home!
Yes! Its a very heavy well built machine! I do believe that Dion offers a different gearbox option that allows you to utilize lower horsepower tractors with this harvester more efficiently! Thanks for watching and commenting! -Alex
Finally some good footage of a 2430 in corn! I've been waiting to see something like this. Thanks for sharing. I'm running 290 PTO hp on a New Holland FP240 with a Dion F61 4-row head. I loved the head when I got it a few years ago but after running 600+ acres thru it I'm not as happy as I first was. The gathering chains are the Achille's heel of the design, which is bad because the whole thing is built around the 2-chain concept. As the chains stretch it becomes impossible to maintain a proper chain-to-sprocket-section fit around the circumference of such large drums, regardless of how the tensioners are set. I keep looking at the similar Horning 1403 rotary head which is gearbox driven with no gathering chains and sprockets and tensioners and chain guides. Unfortunately they don't offer a 4-row but I could live with 3. And it will direct-cut barley, wheat etc unlike the Dion heads which really struggle with it. The Dion rotary heads definitely cut well and feed very aggressively, and having row independence takes the stress out of trying to stay on the rows, especially during prolonged periods of chopping. As long as the chains are fairly new and fitting properly, they're fun to operate.
Yeah I don’t have much experience with the rotary head, like I said I only chopped 10 or so acres with it but I have heard of other people having issues with the chains on them. I tried to focus more on the harvester in this video because the Dion heads have been around for a while and you can get them on different brand choppers so I really just want to focus on the harvester itself and the new ideas that it brings to the industry. Thank you for watching and commenting! -Alex
@@theatlanticdairyman7917 The straight thru design of the Dion choppers is really nice. I'd like to demo one myself if I could. Is this the long length-of-cut setup or the short version? What are the things that you don't like about it?
