BIG BALE Transtacker Extra, Operation And Maintenance Manual

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7.0 Trouble Shooting
7.1 Connecting to the tractor
Big Bale Transtacker supply a 3⁄4” BSP Quick Release
coupling, for the return line, which can significantly reduce
back pressure, improve performance and run cooler.
Electrical connections to the tractor need to be capable of
20 amps continuous supply with no significant volt drop (ie.
more than 0.5v).
Heavy wires and a high enough fuse ratings connected as
close to the battery as possible will give the best results.
It is recommended the fused cable supplied is connected
directly to the battery in order to avoid malfunction.
WARNING: If you connect close to the battery use a fuse to
prevent damaged conductors shorting to the chassis,
melting and possible fire.
Do not operate without fuse supplied in order to prevent
damage/fire to the machine.
It is possible that high current demands, such as starting,
will cause sufficient volt drop to ‘freeze’ the controller, this
can also be a symptom of a bad connection and low
supply voltage. If this occurs switch off the controller at the
rear switch and switch back on, the controller should
recover. If all connections and voltages to the controller are
good then check connections inside the box to the stop
switch and PCB terminal blocks carefully.
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7.2 Pick Up
The pickup height is adjustable to accommodate different
sizes of bales. It is important that the majority of the bales
clear the table surface on pickup and do not pinch on the
edge of the table and prevent the pickup completing its
cycle and add unnecessary stress to the pickup, tines and
table components.
This symptom may still occur when the ground is
particularly uneven. In this event, manually withdraw the
pickup tines, manually finish the pickup up cycle and then
re-press auto pickup key to complete the auto cycle and
prevent the controller becoming ‘hung up’ in the pickup
cycle and corrupting subsequent cycles. It will be noticed
that the tines re-enter the bale at this point.
With bales in excess of 1200mm depth it may be necessary
to raise the connecting height of the machine to the tractor,
to above level, to compensate.
Difficulty may be experienced with bales of lower density
and/or short straw being damaged by the pickup and a
central portion is torn from the bale. To get the best results
in these conditions, Ensure the tines are fully entering the
bale (by increasing the tines in timer incrementally) and
drive to maintain close contact between the pickup and the
side of the bale during tine entry.
Experiment with different tine configurations and density, 6,
4 or 2 tines in the optional positions.
High density bales will stress the pickup tines more and
result in pre-mature breakages of the tines and stress the
tine frames. Reduce the ‘tines in’ timer to the minimum time
possible to ensure sufficient hold on the bale.
In all cases when the “tines in” timer setting is established it
is possible to adjust the ‘tines out’ timer to give a smoother
and faster operation.
7.3 Stacking
When two or three bales placed onto the table it is
important that they are central on a line the length of the
machine. Bales not placed centrally may cause difficulty in
pushing the stack back down the platform, (when they are
tied) may cause the bales to be impaled on the side clamp
bale keeps and generally contribute to a poor stack
appearance and weather resistance.
Obstruction of the tie cycle may have two sources. The
extension is not coming forward sufficiently to clear the
bales on the platform in which case it is necessary to
increase the ‘extend to tie’ timer. Normally set at 3.5 s.
If the settings are above 5 s. this would indicate low
hydraulic oil supply or a ‘lift to tie’ timer setting substantially
greater than its normal setting of 0.8 s. The second cause
may be a bale in the hold position on the pickup, is too
high/close to the table in which case reduce the ‘pickup
hold’ timer to a normal setting of 1.5 s. In any case, manual
interruption of the cycle to adjust the extension to clear the
obstruction will stop the auto cycles which can be resumed
by re-pressing the associated auto key.
In conditions of high friction between the bales (often
moisture) the stack cycle may stop before the bales are fully
raised into the platform. Ensure that the clamps are not
unnecessarily restricting the stack to avoid frictional contact
with the bales. Manual forward extension will clear the
problem and re-pressing the correct auto stack key will
resume the cycle. Note that the ‘extend out’ timer may need
to be adjusted to suit the depth of the bale and note also
that the “extend to tie” and “extend out” timers combined
should move the
extension out a distance equivalent to one bale depth.