What do you think this machine is, and what does it do? More to come later. RnR.
It's a John Deere tractor pulling a seismic testing unit looking for oil & natural gas deposits? I dont know but thats my best guess R&R
That's an interesting guess, td25c, but no, it is not a seismic testing unit. RnR.
I'll take a shot. Seeing it has large rear wheels with hydraulic cylinders for up and down adjustment, I would say it is some sort of cutter head for rock, stabilizing soils or just general ground pulverizing. Although the 5th wheel setup has me a little puzzled other than it's intended to be pulled by a tractor with the dolly while in use and the 5th facilitates easier moving on the highway?
It's a John Deere Tractor pulling a thingy stiring up lots of dust.
Its the typical tool cart, support unit and backup power you need for a John Deere isn't it?.......... :stirthepot:stirthepot:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh
Trailer mounted. forced induction, hydrocarbon fracturing device with non-divorced reduction-drive adjustable depth soils aggitator?
Any more ideas, the replies are getting better as time goes on. Of course, there is probably not much point going on, because we all know that Squizzy has pretty much nailed it.:lmao All will be revealed soon. RnR.
Hummm...well, the machine is running in the picture and the guy is looking over his shoulder at it. The machine looks like it is superheating the soil? God, I hate guessing at stuff like this because usually I'm sooo far off base..lol The soil ahead of the machine looks as though it has alot of clay in it, and looks soft.. Notice the difference in the color ahead and behind the machine.
i am going to guess some kind of trencher or cable plow.
Stump grinder???:beatsme
an automatic Dingo fence installer machine.
Rock Picker..:beatsme:Banghead
Maybe a gopher exterminator.
hot dog cart
Thanks for all the replies, I had a few laughs from them. CM is right, as is joispoi with his technical description. The fifth wheel set up is purely for convenience, as they already had the tandem dolly and it would keep the front of the machine reasonably level. Don't feel bad, Grader4me, at least you had a go and CPS, if stumps get in the way, yes that too. Those of you that have followed my posts know, there is a lot of limestone in our area and this limestone is the mainstay of our crushing and contracting business. For those of you who don't know, this link explains the history behind our operation. Thousands of acres of farm land here has limestone outcrops or sheet limestone, which obviously reduces the productivity of the land and is also hard on machinery. Over the years, different methods have been used to clear this land and make it more productive. It started with ploughs, then hand picking the stones, to mechanical pickers to pick and stockpile the stone, which is the raw material for our business and then on to large ribbed rollers which smash the stone up and break the points of the limestone ridges. In the last few years, a contractor has been crushing or milling the worst areas in the paddocks for farmers, using the FAE three point linkage type crushers mounted on Fendt Tractors. The problem with these machines, is that they are just not built heavy enough for continual work in this situation and it is also very costly for the farmer, so consequently, with grain prices not so good, he hasn't been getting much work. A farmer friend of mine, who has a lot of stony country, decided to do something about it. He bought an old milling machine/road profiler that was retired, but still had a good engine and drum on it. He took the tracks off it and mounted the fith wheel king pin, so that he could pull it with the tandem dolly. He fabricated the rear axle on pivots, so that the machine can be raised and lowered with the hydraulic rams. It weighs about 16 tonnes and a GM 8V92 provides the power. He is cutting about 6-7 feet at a depth of 4 to 6 inches and travels 300 metres an hour. The John Deere tractor has the IVT transmission, which can go as slow as 50 metres an hour. He would like to go a bit deeper and a bit faster, but he is having a bit of trouble with the drum belts slipping when he does. The machine crushes the limestone with no effort at all. You may think that this is a slow and costly operation, which it is, but it is also a once only operation and will never have to be done again. This chap has done fifty acres so far and he feels that he is improving the value of his land by anything up to $1,000 per acre. I have already seen the improvement in his crops on the stoney country. My interest in this is that there is a huge amount of country with limestone on it and I think there is a contracting opportunity there, if the cost can be brought down to an acceptable level for the farmers, so who knows, one day I might be looking for some retired milling machines. The other upside of this is, if we can design some way of lifting the 100-150mm of crushed material, screen off the coarse rock and return the finer rock and soil, say -30mm, to the paddock, we would have an unlimited supply of partially crushed rock for our business. Here are some more pics of the machine. The first one is the FAE crusher which is fine for what it is designed for, but not strong enough for this sort of work. RnR.
Here's a few more.
Vermeer makes something similar to this, its called a terrain leveler, but it uses the same drum.
So i was kinda right then R&R :drinkup
I was kinda wrong..lmao...good lord..I need help..lol
A lunar rover!!
I think your to far gone for the good lord part, take another chew and dream on....bah ha ha ointhead
the deere is stuck and that thing in the rear is pushing it home.......lololol..nothing gets stuck like a deere....
That machine would be ideal for what we want to do, Aliate, it would certainly cover some country. The biggest problem is, the returns would never cover the cost of the purchase of that machine. We also want a machine that is mobile and will travel easily from farm to farm. RnR.
Yeah a used one is about $950,000 lol
They don't exactly give away those Fendts. The plus side is, it can perform other functions. What was failing on those units? Was it the Fendt or the pulverizer? That's a pretty good idea that your friend had. As far as harvesting gravel, maybe chop up a cold planer, keep the conveyor and run it through a double screen before it dumps into a trailer. I imagine this would be expensive gravel, though.
Looks like it works good, but what's the return on investment? Does it pay in the long run? That's wanting to farm the hard way, looks like. We've got some country like that.
Well that answers my question of how FAE crushers handle limestone outcrops. I could have a lot of fun building one of these screening woisits. Find a rear discharge mill for the base of your project. Take the tracks off, extend the frame rearward and mount some ag tires on it. Put hydraulics front and rear for depth control of the mill head assembly. Then move the discharge conveyor to the back of the frame and add a trommel between the first conveyor and the discharge conveyor. The mill head would crush the rock and send it up the conveyor and dump into the trommel to be screened. The fines would fall through the trommel and be placed back in the cut. From there, the rock would go up the discharge conveyor and, well, discharge. Either roadside it with tractors with dump trailers or artics, or direct load your trucks to take the rock to your plant. The more continuous the operation of the wotisit, the better the finished product(farmground) should be. At least that would be my hi-tek redneck approach.
The pulveriser was failing, I think it was in the drive. The same chap that built this machine, had the contractors in beforehand and they were having problems with breakdowns and then gave the job away, because they reckoned the rock was too hard, whereas this machine just powers through it. That is the other thing, you don't need an expensive tractor to pull it, anything will do that, as long as it will go slow enough. I had been thinking of something like that, but because the milling is a slow operation, I thought it might be better to pick up the gravel, after the mill has been through. I have even had thoughts of a tractor drawn elevating scraper, a company out here builds them, with a screen mounted where the pan is, with a conveyor taking the oversize out to a truck, or a tipping trailer pulled behind. The potato growers use machines to pick stones out of the soil, but I don't think they are rugged enough for this sort of thing. The soil is screened out through the elevator, but I could see a lot of wear there and some machines have trommel screens on them. The cost would not be that great once it is set up. The problem for us is, that we are running out of the raw material in the close proximity and our transport costs are escalating. If this were to work, it gives us a never ending supply of clean, partially crushed rock, for our operation. Also, if we were running a milling machine, we would be contracting to the farmer, by the acre. The contractor doing it a the moment, is charging around $1,000 per acre, but he is not getting a lot of work. For the farmers here to be really interested, the milling needs to be around $5-600 per acre, then I think we would be snowed under, but I am not sure that it can be done for that. I think that over a number of years, he would come out in front. He hasn't spent that much on the machine and it is not using as much fuel as I thought, but I can't remember what he told me it actually is using. He has quite a large holding and the majority of it is very good land, but he also has quite a lot of stoney country. For years he has been passionate about making the stoney country more productive and we have had quite a few discussions on various ideas to achieve that. He showed me an area that he pulverised last year and where the crop would normally burn off on the stones, it was green and even all the way through. I would go as far to say that he would have doubled the yield, to what it would have been otherwise. Also, to him it is improving the value of his land, and it is a once only operation. The other benefit is that it is not so hard on tillage equipment, once the stone has been milled, or pulverised. That could be a good idea. Perhaps I could get you to knock one up for us, hvy 1ton. I don't know enough about mills at this stage, to know how much trouble it would be to mount a screen in the middle of one, but nothing is impossible, it would revolve more around the cost. I was thinking that because the mill goes so slow, rather than tying up a man and a truck, it might be better to mill the rock first and then come in with something that operates a lot quicker, to pickup and stockpile the rock for the trucks, or use the trucks to cart it away, directly from the picking machine. The other thing is, we can have the rock that this chap has milled, so we need something to do that. It is all just ideas at the moment and I am open to suggestions. We were talking about it the other day and we were even thinking that a loader with a Flipscreen bucket on it, would get us started. RnR.
What about converting a harley rake to feed a pan or conveyor on a self loading trailer?
Would a harley rake be able to pull the rock out of the pulverised material to a depth of say 100-150 mm? RnR.
I think a Harley rake would be a little light for that application, and they don't go down to that depth. But you could borrow from the concept and build your own beefed up Mad Max version since you guys are already Frankensteining your own equipment :drinkup.
They make rock windrows and pickers for farming applications, not sure if your rocks will be too small after "planing" though. (Could always modify it I suppose). http://www.industrysearch.com.au/products/images/np52896_1.jpg (says it will do 2" to 25") http://www.schulte.com.au/SRW800_rockwindrower.htm This site has the windrower and rock picker, simply tow behind a tractor. http://geronimo.com.au/images/Rock Pickers and windrower 005.jpg
The rakes would work well for the surface rock, but I think we need to look at ways of lifting the 150-200mm of pulverised rock and pass it over a screen, letting the -30mm (approximately) fall back to the ground, with the larger rock going out to the truck or whatever, on a conveyor. RnR.
How about building something based on a Pellican street sweeper? Remove the brush and install a milling drum that spits everything towards the hopper. http://www.elginsweeper.com/images/content/mechanical.gif Another option and probably more cost effective is to marry a conveyor to the milling drum so that it catches the aggregate as it's coming off the drum.
This machine probably had a conveyor on it anyway, I didn't see it before he modified it, milling machines generally have conveyors on them, but he didn't need the conveyor for what he is doing. This then goes back to your earlier post, where I maybe try and get an old one with the conveyor and pulverise and screen the rock in one pass, but I can see that there would be times when the conveyor wouldn't be needed and the material would be left as is. That is why I thought it might be better to have a machine for each operation, one pulverising and one picking. I have seen photos of milling machines pulling screens to recycle the product, so anything is possible. RnR.
RnR , I come across a rockpicker on u-tube that they call a RP1000 and can be found at www.therockpicker.com it may suit your operation well one would think
That picker was posted on HEF not long ago, greeniron and it certainly looks good for picking surface rock, there are plenty of places in our area that it could be used. In this particular situation, I would like to lift and screen the whole 150-200mm that has been pulverised, so that all of the oversize rock is taken out, leaving a fine tilth, about -30mm, to grow the crop in. RnR.
Those rock pickers and rakes are pretty much the same thing as a screen, the distance between the "teeth" being your screen size. Most pull anything 6-8" subgrade up and windrow to the side or deposit in a collection basket. If you are hellbent on lifting the dirt you could look at something like an elevated scraper (623 etc) to lift the rock and run through a screen.
That's interesting, I didn't realise they pulled rock up from the subgrade, if that is the case, they should be able to lift the rock out of the pulverised material then? I have never seen one of those machines working, only on Youtube. That was my other thought, I mentioned earlier, a company here builds a tractor pulled elevating scraper, and I thought something like that could be used with a screen mounted on it, that way there isn't so much money tied up in the machine as compared to a scraper. If those rakes did pretty much the same thing, that would even be better. RnR.
I only mentioned the 623 because scrapers are going for dirt cheap compared to their usual prices. Average auction price is $70,000 compared to the usual $550,000 or so they normally go for. Not sure how happy the elevator would be with all those rocks though! That Schulte guy is in Wellington but I'm sure he'd be happy to talk shop if you gave him a ring (number is on the site). Looks like they also do some sort of demo tour as well (again check the site). He could tell you exactly how deep those machines can go, and if something could be modified to go deeper if it doesn't meet your requirements. The other thing is you could always look at/demo one of those ones and then make your own with longer tines etc. The other thing you could do is run a windrower down it once, then disk or harrow it to bring anything else up to the surface (quick and cheap) and then windrow again.
Schulte usually have a display at our local field days when they are on. I will have to have a closer look at the windrower. They are pretty simple, it wouldn't be very hard to make a small prototype and mess around with different length tines. RnR.
I'd say a ground pulverizer of some sort. Used to blend soil, rocks, stumps and snakes into usable farm ground or maybe comercial or residential areas. Opps, I'm late to this party. Didn't see the other posts.
Hello surfer-joe, I haven't seen you around for a while. That is our aim, to pulverise the rock to a depth of 150-200mm so that farm machinery can till through it without bouncing over the limestone reefs and to also provide a depth of material for the crop to grow in. We do not really want to pulverise all of the rock, otherwise we would finish up with a gravel road and the soil is alkaline enough now, so if we can remove the rock, it leaves a little more soil and also gives us a supply of raw material. RnR.
The problem I see is that you need width and speed to make it pay. D11 with a 30 foot deep ripper
You are right, Hendrik and that can be done, it would just need more power to drive it. A lot revolves around on how the rural economy is travelling at the time, as to how much farmers are willing to pay to have their rocky country pulverised. That's what this bloke does, he has a Komatsu 475, rips the rock a metre deep and rolls it with a 60 tonne roller. http://www.garry-davies-bulldozing.websyte.com.au/site.cfm?/garry-davies-bulldozing/ RnR.
I was driving around yesterday and the idea of converting/building a belt loader/screener contraption popped into my head. The main downside is it would require a large dozer to pull. Don't really have any idea of waht size dozer could handle what cutting width, but i have a feeling it will be in the upper end of dozers to get the production you want.
The type of machine I was thinking of, would only need a reasonable size farm tractor to pull it. We are not looking for that much production, you may be thinking more along the lines of some of the large earthmoving machines like Holland loaders or something like that. I am thinking more of a beefed up version of what the potatoe growers use for cleaning up potatoe ground, something like this. http://www.rocklandmfg.com/dealerdenpassprotect.html Instead of having the elevator doing the screening, because i would imagine the wear rate would be fairly high, I would use a flat conveyor belt to lift the material on to a vibrating screen and the oversize to go out on another conveyor. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was also wondering whether a Lehman paddle type scraper could be modified to pick up and screen the rock out, providing you could get the elevator to lift the dirt and rock high enough, to land it on a screen. There was some conjecture about the scraper handling the rock, but remember, the rock has been pulverised and the largest lump size would be about 6". Maybe those of you who are experienced with scrapers could help me out here. These are designed to be pulled with farm tractors. http://www.farmhub.com.au/DesktopDefault.aspx?ItemID=3176569&TabID=3432 As you can appreciate, it is all about trying to keep the costs down and we also need the ability to shift quite a few kilometres quickly. Keep thinking, I am open to all suggestions. RnR.
Not sure if it would suit your needs RnR, but have you considered a Rock Hound landscape rake? http://www.rockhound.com/Products/The Original RockHound Rake
I'm with you one the conveyor taking the material to a screen and the oversize dumping onto another conveyor. I'm having a really hard time picturing how hard it will pull after the pulverize has its way with the ground. Looking at the pics of the pulverized ground again, I think a big MFWD or small artic tractor could cut 8-10' wide. I'm sure you have a better idea being able to look at it with your own eyes. A big advantage to using a tractor, the conveyors and screen of a pto pump, the bolt on ones are pain though. The less engines the better. :drinkup
No I haven't, Atco, I think I may have seen it on the web at some stage, there is nothing like that out here. It is probably a bit small for what we are looking for, because it appears they only make them for skid steers or small loaders. It does a very good job of raking the stones off the top, but we would really like something that would pull all of the larger rock, 3" - 6", out of the pulverised material, to a depth of 100-150mm and we need it to operate more on a broadacre scale. Thanks for the suggestion though, it would be ideal in the landscaping industry. I do not think it would take lot of power or traction to pull it, because the pulverised material is really loose and if an elevator or some other means was used to lift the material onto a screen, the only extra power needed, would be to drive the elevator or belts and the screen, which does not amount to very much at all. The difference here, in comparison to a scraper, is that we are not cutting through a hard pan and we are not push loading the material and carrying it, it just flows over the screen, or through it and out the other end. I think a reasonable sized MFWD would pull it quite easily. RnR.
These things ??? stone picker stone picker 1
That's the principle, Stock, but I think for what we are looking at, we would need to beef it up. I would imagine there would be a lot of wear in the elevator, although I haven't seen one up close, so I am not sure how it is constructed. I would look at using a conveyor belt that lifts the pulverised rock onto a screen, either a flat vibrating screen or a trommel, the trommel would be better in damp conditions. Of course the other option is to use the elevating scraper principle to lift the material onto a screen. RnR.
Do I detect a TIM THE TOOL MAN episode here?? YouTube - Tim Allen grunt collection Don't think the trommel would do as the soil would cake on the screens