Combines Donn 1500

[ilovegreen]

we even had some donn 1500 up in north west north dakota. i dont think the went over to well. the unloading auger shookj when it was combining. they are junk as far as im concerened

 

[larry]

I demoed a 8420 same size cly. as the don 1500 but more cleaning capactiy. Dealer brought it out for about 7hrs or so and it seemed to work fine.

 

[diesel]

I think I remember those. Never saw one work, but I think I remember them having a stalk chopper built into the corn head.....looked like lawn mower blades running over top of the corn rows. Thought that was interesting.

 

[silverturnedgreen]

Our local Belarus dealer had one out on demo about 10 years ago. UNBElIEVABlE CAPACITY!!! A little primitive, though. You would develop VERY strong arms steering this thing over time, but the machine was well-built, and built for very tough conditions. Even the sides of the grain bin mechanically vibrated to shake damp crop down onto the unloading auger; - indicative of the tough harvesting conditions within the (former) Soviet Union. This machine also had a 10-bar, 26 inch cylinder, much like a Deere, but the workmanship was a little crude. Unloading on-the-go was a MUST, since the seperator had to be running in order to power the unloading auger; - if you engaged the seperator without crop throughput, this machine would almost "bounce" you out of the cab from the vibration. This machine also had the "optional" straw accumulator; - a trap door behind the walkers which would open and close intermittently, leaving "piles" of straw as opposed to a windrow. No auto header height or flexbar available, but overall, an interesting machine to operate. (I'll stick with my Deere and Gleaner)

 

[larry]

The one I demoed had 10 rasp bars but the cly measured 58.5 wide and 31.5" in diameter. The cocave wrapped around a 130 degrees. At first we thought thing was a big joke but when it was working in the field we were all quite surprised how well it worked. The salesman at the dealer couldn't believe the capacity they had either when they first took them out for demo's. Driving it was quite interesting as its not

 

[silverturnedgreen]

I stand corrected on the cylinder diameter! (It's been a few years) The one I "test piloted" was hydro but with few additional features! Definitely the same machine as what you're talking about, though! As for the rotary model you mentioned, it was actually being built back in the 80's. International Harvester (remember those guysIJ) was commissioned by the Soviet Agri-revitalization program to help them produce a more advanced line of planting and harvesting equipment; - the rotary combine was one of several products included, but with HEAVY export restrictions attached! The Donn 1500 wasn't the first Russian attempt at the North American Combine market, though. In Canada, there was a previous model (I believe) called the C6! It had a unique, somewhat triangular shaped cab with (no guff) VENETIAN BlINDS attached to the cab. This model was sold around 1976 and was blue in colour!

 

[larry]

Thats interesting about IH and Belarus back in the 80's. The dealer did say it was very similair to IH in design. I was talking to the Belarus tech when I demoed the combine. He said basically they copy what ever designs they want at least they used to.