The start of the record attempt took place in the late afternoon of July 2, 2024. The independent analysis of the experiment was carried out by Per Frankelius, associate professor from Linköping University and innovation leader at Agtech Sweden. The conditions were not optimal with both weather and technology. A main drive broke down. After welding with a generator, the faster solution was to use a drive from another machine.
At 18:30 the experiment was up and running again and thus the 24 hours could begin. In the meantime, there were some small stops for refueling and lubrication, and in a couple of cases also when the pickup was full of hay. Other disruptions included transportation between fields, which was estimated at 30 kilometers.
FastBale
The FastBale machine builds the bale in two different chambers. In the pre-chamber, two thirds of the bale is formed, then it is transferred to the second chamber, where the remaining third of the bale is built up.
When this bale is completed, the grass inflow is switched back to the pre-chamber and the same process is started on a new bale in the pre-chamber. Meanwhile, the finished bale is wrapped in a net and moved to the back to await wrapping. As a rule, the bale is wrapped with six layers of plastic, which is done in twelve rotations.
By simultaneously building a new bale in the pre-chamber, the machine can run continuously and does not need to stop, hence the name FastBale. In addition, the machine has a defined size of baling chambers, which means that the bales are the same size every time. This is called a fixed chamber, as opposed to a flex chamber which can build different sized bales.
Preliminary analyses on site
After 24 hours (timed to tenths of a second) from the restart after the breakdown, 1587 bales were wrapped and ready according to the display in the tractor. After extracting data from the sensors and computers that continuously followed the process, the above preliminary analysis was confirmed.
In calculating the number of bales produced per each ten-minute period, the following conclusion could be drawn: the exact 24 hours that elapsed between July 2 and 3 showed that 1 587 bales were produced. This means 66.125 bales per hour and less than one minute per bale, or 54 seconds per bale.
- “As the bales weighed around 500 kilograms on average, it is impressive that it only took 54 seconds on average, especially as the time included transportation between fields,” says Per Frankelius.
The data finally showed that it took less than 16 hours to produce 1 000 bales.
- “It was an intense 24 hours, but with a world record behind us, it was time well spent, to say the least,” says Frankelius.
Read more: Kvernelandgroup.com