BISO 3D – IN THE FIELD 2020 (PART 2)

In our regions, we harvest rapeseed, barley and wheat. These are our key crops during the main season. In some regions, soya and many special crops are starting to be more important. Not only pea and many kinds of grass seeds. Our customers require one header for all these crop types.

The BISO 3D VARIOFLEX 1070 AIR i focuses on high capacity combines and farmers who search for high quality and fast harvest. For our header, it is very easy to change the harvested crop. It is a typical feature of BISO headers already from 2001, this means 20 years of experience with the vario headers.     

The BISO 3D headers are fully ready for rapeseed harvest. The integrated vario table, auger and side knives are the natural header features for our customers.  

What has changed during the last 10 years in combine business in Slovakia? Combines are bigger and bigger. Sure - the price for a hectare of contracting work is not rising, however, the price of combines is increasing heavily. The maintenance costs are the same, but the biggest problem is to get a good driver. Not only a driver, but also a technician, who knows how the combine works and is able to feel what’s really going on. It’s very easy to damage the combine, to crash somewhere, make wrong service, block something, overload something, overheat something … The combine is full of hydraulic and electronic, but not only this. Modern combines use very sophisticated technologies with mechanical, hydraulic and electric drive. There are thousands of components. And in many cases the one broken part can stop the combine. RELIABILITY is in the first place in this business.

20 years of experience with the vario headers

We have a hi-tech modern header and the top technology that you can buy for your combine on the market right now. The header feeds very expensive combines and if you have a good driver, you want to buy him a high-performance combine. And if you want to hit 100ha per day, you need a comparable header. You need to harvest many crops under many different conditions. We have intelligent precision planters, we have intelligent row crop cultivators and if you drive the big combines yourself, you know, that the machines are so powerful and the working day is so long, that we need more and more practical intelligent functions on the combines, too. It’s a fact we can’t change.  

15 years of experience with flex modules

On one side, the customers complain about the machine price, maintenance cost and thick operator manual, on the other side, they are looking for combines with brutal performance in tons/hour, fully automatic with a luxury cab like in trucks or passenger cars. During the last 20 years our business has changed heavily. The “standard” is a vario header with integrated side knives, hi spec cabs, wide tires (in our region minimum 800mm), sieve box self-leveling, a chopper and a chaff spreader. Many combines have automatic steering, tracks, 4WD, yield mapping with yield and moisture sensor and a special group are rotary/hybrid combines … and in the header business the request for FLEX modules is coming.

The currently produced BISO 3D headers are in high specification. This means a flex module with air suspension and with intelligent functions with patented pressure sensing in the cutter bar.          

The HYBRID frame is the backbone of our headers. The frame is very strong with minimum bending, the sometimes called “banana effect” is completely missing. Thanks to this, we can use the high capacity auger and have very high lifetime.             

In the FLEX mode the key issue is the pressure sensing in the knife area. The driver can adjust the pressure from 2-50kg.    

VARIO with FLEX not only for soya

The flex headers are usually related to soya or pea, but with headers bigger than 7.5m, we hear more and more of the request from the farmers to have the FLEX cutter bar for the harvest of flat crops. Generally, the farms with good lands with no stones and with yields of more than 8 tons per ha make better sense in case of lying crops to take better care of the harvest. The value which lays on the ground is significantly higher than the costs for the flex technology.

We will keep in touch with our combine drivers and analyze the real use of our technology. It is clear that they will use it as a standard vario header during harvest of standard crops under standard conditions, but it will be useful to analyze the real use of all features and on the base of this know-how from the field we will update the software of AUTO mode. And thanks to our technology, it will be very easy to update online all the customer units for the next season.

BISO 3D for all combine brands

In our fleet, we drive the 3D VarioFLEX on New Holland combines, sometimes on Case-IH machines. The yellow machines have powerful hydraulics, a strong feeder house and a very good electronic system with a copy system. Historically, we had a close cooperation with many Claas Lexion owners that have comparable requests to the CNH customers and we know very well their machines as contractors working together very often. Significantly specific is the segment of John Deere owners who have minimum experience with vario headers and there were some technical restrictions on the older models. In this case, we are waiting for new models of green combines with high performance which will need our technology, with optimistic expectations. We are receiving first experience from MF/FENDT Ideal combine dealers and it looks quite good.  

This year was a difficult one for combine harvesting. There was a lot of rain and mud. But we have positive response from our customers about the work of our vario headers in such a heavy conditions thanks to a patented vario system with good bottom protection and the ability to move the knife bar when you need it.

You can move the vario table forward about exclusive 800mm. More and more farmers work as BIO farmers or with a low use of herbicides, this means very fast changing conditions with areas full of weed and green material and thanks to troubles with infections the farmers are looking for headers which are able to cut the crop near the ground.  

The main advantage of the vario header in comparison with a draper belt header is the lower running cost and higher lifetime. In the areas of contact with the harvested material, we use high quality materials – usually stainless and stainless spring steel. This is important for customers clocking nearly 1000ha per year during cereal harvest.

With the vario header, you can change the harvest strategy during seconds and immediately check the result (fluent material flow).              

In the picture, the reel is active and doing an easy job. The reel of the future has to lift the crop from the ground if needed and for this you need the powerful reel finger. This is the reason why we still use high quality fingers from spring steel. The wear of the reel costs nothing in comparison with the value of the harvested crop.             

The 10.7 meter headers are actually becoming a standard. The drivers are very careful with the 12.3m headers. The same story as with the 9m headers 10 years ago. In the field, you will not recognize the difference. But during the transport, every cm is important. The drivers are right saying that there is a limit.  For such a header you need the ProfiSteer trailer with a rear axle steering.        

The nightmare of contractors – the transport capacity. It is not easy to organize the fleet of the trailers for fluent grain transport from different areas and with a different performance of such big combines during the working day.           

Between the header and the combine cab, there is no cable. The tablet is connected with the header through WiFi, this means wireless. The advantage of this solution is during the diagnostics. You can switch on the header drive, go out of the combine and see what is going on. And what is very important for us, it is very easy to change the combine brand on this 3D VarioFLEX model line.  

The CR9090 SmartTrax with BISO 3D header is a fantastic combination with incredible potential thanks to the FLEX module with air suspension and active pressure sensing. 

The air suspension is active all the time. Every parallelogram arm is suspended.               

The distance between parallelograms is 900mm.       

Every parallelogram has its own patented ground pressure sensor. Therefore, the system knows what is the contact pressure between the flex module skid and the ground. We can adjust it from 2kg – 50kg.                

 The driver can see what is the FLEX module doing on the tablet. The FLEX module is working in AUTO mode.       

The driver can move the reel up and down or front or back, but if there is the risk of contact with some flex module arm (knife), the reel is automatically lifted up before the collision. This BISO Reel Anti Collision System is one of the key systems on the header. Thanks to this, we can use the reel fingers from spring steel.  

The driver can adjust the angle of the header. In the picture you can see that in standard situation on flat field the header is nearly parallel with the ground.

In the picture you can see the clean design of the Hybrid Frame. It takes a lot of years of heavy work. A weaker hybrid frame (combination of steel and aluminum parts) will not be able to produce vario headers with working width of more than 9-10m without the “banana effect”, i.e. no bending.      

If the current trend continues, the 10.7m and 12.3m models with high request of FLEX technology will be used as standard headers on the top combine models for the next 10 years . It’s much more difficult for contractors to run such headers thanks to more and more complicated transport between the regions and not so perfect knowledge (or zero knowledge) of local farm road and field conditions, but the big farms are able to organize well the use of such big rotary/hybrid combines with the headers on the same level in relation to achieve good performance and harvest quality. The combines and headers ordered by big professional farms are actually in higher specification than the units ordered by contractors.   

In the RIGID mode (0% FLEX) our BISO 3D VarioFLEX can work as a standard vario header. Just like the CropRanger, this header is perfect for rapeseed harvest with integrated side knives.               

Thanks to fully integrated side knives, one driver can change the crop very quickly. It has been a typical feature of BISO headers for many years.       

 For your powerful high performance combine you need the header on the same level.  

Four copy skids are in working position as you can see in the picture. The header is working in rigid mode (0% FLEX). In FLEX mode, they are retracted and all is managed on the basis of pressure sensing in the cutter bar area.          

On such a field where green material is close to the ground the afternoon and evening work is completely different from the noon work thanks to a different moisture of harvested material. For such conditions, the good vario header is a very good solution.

Conclusion?

In the RIGID (0% FLEX) mode, the 3D VarioFLEX AIR i works as a standard BISO vario header with a very strong hybrid frame (ready for 18m headers), powerful auger and fully integrated side knives for easy harvest of rapeseed or the high crops, where you can use standard crop dividers and side knives together in one moment. The angle adjustment is not missing. The reel has a new BISO Reel Anti Collision System, which is fully automatic and protecting the reel fingers from conflict with the knife when the driver goes down. The models of VF9.1 and VF10.70 will already have the drive of knives and auger from both sides (reel in one piece) and this will be a very good choice when considering their lifetime. A tablet with WiFi and online software update right from the factory is a new feature.             

More about the 3D VARIOFLEX AIR i headers: http://navigator.biso.eu/en/en-biso/harvesting-technics/biso-3d-varioflex-air-i/

Leaflet version in ENG for download:  http://navigator.biso.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/BISO-3D-VARIOFLEX-AIR-i-ENG.pdf

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