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Combine Clinic Videos: Harvesting with Precision

Aug. 24 2021 Tech-Tip By Birkey's

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Birkey's combine clinics focus on keeping your Case IH combines in peak operating condition. While we won't be hosting in-person or virtual clinics this fall, we want 2021 to be your best harvest yet. We're sharing the full series of 2020 virtual combine clinic videos, whether they're a perfect refresher from last year or a brand new experience for you. The second video is all about Harvesting with Precision. 


Data Management

If you want to manage your data and wipe your display from last year, and clean up fields you may no longer have, there are a couple of ways to do that:

  • Go to Data Management; then go to your delete tab. If you would like to retain all your grower farm and field names from previous years, choose your data type of tasks. Select your grain operation or a grain harvest operation. Choose all growers, all farms, and all fields. When you have this done, hit delete and it will ask you: “Are you sure you want to delete the data?” Once you say yes, it’s gone. So if you follow this format and just choose the data type tasks, it will delete last year’s yield data, any GPS data in the display, but retain all the growers and farm field names.
  • The second way to do this is instead of choosing data type tasks, go and choose the grower. This will eliminate not only the GPS data, the yield data, but it’s also going to erase all the grower farm field names in the display. It will essentially wipe the display clean. The reason we would do this is if you’re a grower who does variety tracking. If you’re taking data from your planner, it has all the grower farm field names in there and then you’ll bring it into the desktop software exporting it back out; it’s going to include in the file all those farm and field names as well as planning data. So when you bring it in here, if you just delete the task data, instead of the grower, it’s going to double up all those grower and farm and field names in the display. Make sure those are out of there before we ever stick the USB or data card into the display and upload the planning. 

To sum it up: 

If you want to retain grower farm field names, select task.

If you want to wipe it clean, select grower.

If you’re unsure, contact your local Precision Farming specialist.

It’s also a good idea to make sure you’re starting the season with a fresh or clear data card. Take the time to wipe the data card clean and load the files you need only.

Receiver Communication 

If you want to move a GPS receiver from the planter tractor to your combine in the fall, you could get an error message reading “GPS Receiver Communication Lost.” This can be explained for a couple of a different reasons, but usually, it’s the connection type.

When you come into the toolbox GPS, you have four different options from the dropdown menu:

  • Can
  • A Can B
  • RS-232 A
  • RS-232 B

Hang on your setup. You can go in there and cycle through those.

As soon as it sees the receiver, it will lock on, and you’ll get a D-GPS satellite with a white background. This means you’re locked on to the signal.

The other issue could be, maybe you run a subscription in the fall or you need to choose the correction type you’re using. Most guys will run at least WAAS GPS correction signal level in the fall. You may have a range point or a center point subscription or RTK Plus. We need to come in and check the configuration in the Pro 700 to make sure we’re hooked up correctly.

If you get in the shed and don’t have GPS receiver communication, one of the first questions we have to ask: Is your grain tank raised up? Does the GPS receiver have a clear view of the sky? What could hinder the connection with GPS? Make sure you’re outside with a clear view of the sky.

Variety Tracking

If you’re variety tracking, products have to be set up correctly in the spring for us to be able to use them for a variety of tracking in the fall.

Product name should be set as the hybrid and the form is seed in the crop is corn. If you          put corn in there for the product name, your variety tracking wouldn’t be very successful in the fall. The first step is making sure we set it up correctly in the spring. We’ve had growers try to use tag as an option, which doesn’t work as well. One thing we need to make sure we always do: when doing variety of tracking while calibrating, shut the variety tracking off. If you try to calibrate, say your yield sensor, and it crosses the line between one hybrid and another, it can really mess up your green calibrations.

There’s a two-step process for variety tracking.

  • Take your planning data and bring it into the desktop software.
  • Choose the grower farm in fields we want to export out with the planning data into the combine.

Just because you record your data with your planning tractor doesn’t mean you can just take out the stick and stick it into your combine and go into the field. Make sure it’s done prior to you going in the field.

Row Guidance for Corn 

Every year, check both of the sensors to make sure the springs and connections are tight.

Note the true sight sensor has multiple two springs on it.

Make sure the sensor can swivel side to side and return to center.

Also, it has a spring to keep the arms flexing in and out; make sure if they’re separated, they spring back to center. A lot of times, we’ll see a broken spring and this can affect the performance of the guidance system.

Both of these systems, the blue connector, we want the connector mounted and underneath the snout with a tab facing up. Then, no corn stalks come in there and grab it, pulling the connection apart.

We also want to check our measurement on our row guidance. If we’re running corn head and 30-inch corn, we measure outside of the blue sensor arm to the outside on the other side. This measurement should always be two inches wider than the row width. On a 30-inch row, we want to see a 32-inch measurement across there.

Camera Systems 

Don’t forget to take the time to check your camera systems. Or perhaps you want to add a camera system; the Pro 700 can run up to three cameras on the combine at once. Check your camera out and make sure they are cleaned up and ready to go. If you’d like to add them to a machine, there are a lot of different ways we can do it.

If you get up in the grain tank by the GPS receiver and see a little green plug there, this is the camera input. When the grain tanker on the back of the machine is in reverse or even out on the auger for unloading, a camera can be helpful. Take the time to check those out. If you’d like to talk to your local Birkey’s specialist about adding cameras for field operations and going down the road, it’s quite a large machine to be operating down the road not knowing what’s going on behind you.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to talk to your local Birkey’s Precision Farming Specialist and schedule a time for us to come out.