Combines Cat maintenance

Whoa, Twin Rotor, now you're starting to sound like you'd still rather use two tin cans and 100 ft. of string rather than a cell phone. That lack of advancement will keep you where you've always been....

It's great to have all the gadgets farmbuddy and i really enjoy them but nowdays it is often electrical problems that stop you not mechanical. A friend of dad's had the dealer spend two days working on his TX66s,one had a rat visit it and the other had a computer problem but the kicker was that the self diognostics was telling them it was something else.john

I agree the electronics are great. It's a lot better to flip a switch than pushing a bunch of levers to get something to work. But if you look at a New Holland or an International there are few moving parts hence less to go wrong. That's why I question the reliability of lexion's with their systems. In the entire thrashing_seperating system on New Holland's TR's there are only SIX moving parts. The two rotors, beater, grain pan and the two sieves, far fewer than lexion has. Even lexion utilizes a twin-rotor system to seperate the grain on the there largest combine. I have also heard that New Holland is to come out with a combine that has 40% more capacity than the largest lexion.

It appears that rasp bar maintenance is very difficult on the lexion. I looks like one must take all the belts, chains and drives off the Right hand side of the lexion to remove the cylinder. Was told the rasp bars are welded onto the spiders, so they have to be cut off with a torch are maybe ground off with a grinder. This is all necessary, due to the APS. The lexion appears to have quite a number of grease zerks, as well.

Good points about the potential for rat damage, johnboy!

AMEN

as far as the tr the ih them combines are at there peak of capacity. You talk about the farm progress show did you see the 2388 12 row machineIJ that was a good one wasnt itIJ The tr 99. looks like a tr98 longer auger and terrain tracer. Cat is on the cutting edge of technology that has everyone trying to play catch up. As far as the big new NH ill believe that one when I see it. They were working on that in the early 90s when i worked for them. Yeah i have seen the prototype pictures looks the same as the ones form 2 years ago. they have been testing this combines for years Dont hold your breath.

Whummps, tj, which side are you and TwinRotor being misfed into nowIJ Rasp bar maintenance has never been much fun for us on any combine. With a lexion, you just finally get to do somethings a little different. May even be better, but probably not worse.

I understand what you are saying about complexity and repair technicians, but the same thing is happening to all other machinery and vehicles. New cars, pickups, heavy trucks and farm machinery all have adopted electronics to make them more reliable. The advantage to electronics is that it typically has an increased interval between repair over older style switches, cables, etc. It will eventually require repair that you probably can't do yourself, but the time between required repairs will be greater, so the machine will be more reliable with less downtime. We all have heard guys talk about these new vehicles (usually wife's car) and how they can't work on it like the old one. But, outside of a few oil changes they don't need much. Every farming generation this century has had to adapt to technology. Previous generations had to switch from threshing machines to combines, horses to tractors etc. We get to make the switch from mechanical control, repair and management to intelligent machines that manage themselves. There will be missteps and screwups along the way, and a few dead ends. But this is the future, don't be afraid of it.

Amen to that. You have the right idea. Embrace this new technology. learn everything you can about it while you can. There's no doubt this is the industry trend. Might as well get on board now and stay one step ahead.