Baler
Industrial balers are also used in material recycling facilities, primarily for baling metal, plastic, or paper for transport.
These haystacks lifted most of the plant fibers up off the ground, letting air in and water drain out, so the grasses could dry and cure, to retain nutrition for livestock feed at a later time.
In 1872, a reaper that used a knotter device to bundle and bind hay was invented by Charles Withington; this was commercialized in 1874 by Cyrus McCormick.
[1] In 1936, Innes invented an automatic baler that tied bales with twine using Appleby-type knotters from a John Deere grain binder; in 1938, Edwin Nolt filed a patent[2] for an improved version that was more reliable.
[1] The first round baler was probably invented in the late 19th century and one was shown in Paris by Pilter (as illustrated by Michael Williams in Steam Power in Agriculture: Blandford, 1977).
[4] Originally conceived by Ummo Luebben circa 1910, the first round baler did not see production until 1947 when Allis-Chalmers introduced the Roto-Baler.
Marketed for the water-shedding and light weight properties of its hay bales, AC had sold nearly 70,000 units by the end of production in 1960.
[5] The next major innovation began in 1965 when a graduate student at Iowa State University, Virgil Haverdink, sought out Wesley F. Buchele, a professor of Agricultural Engineering, seeking a research topic for a master thesis.
[8]In the summer of 1969, the Australian Econ Fodder Roller baler came out, a design that made a 135 kg (298 lb) ground-rolled bale.
[9] In the early 1980s, collaboration between Walterscheid and Vermeer produced the first effective uses of CV joints in balers, and later in other farm machinery.
[7] Due to the ability for round bales to roll away on a slope, they require specific treatment for safe transport and handling.
Due to their size and their weight, which can be a ton or more, large round bales require special transport and moving equipment.
Careful placement of the spear in the center is needed or the bale can spin around and touch the ground while in transport, causing a loss of control.
On 3 September 2010, on the A381 in Halwell near Totnes, Devon, England, an early member of British rock group ELO Mike Edwards was killed when his van was crushed by a large round bale.
The cellist, 62, died instantly when the 600-kilogram (1,300 lb) bale fell from a tractor on nearby farmland before rolling onto the road and crushing his van.
The plastic wrap on the ends of each bale sticks together to seal out air and moisture, protecting the silage from the elements.
The bales are then moved or stacked using a special pincer attachment on the front loader of a tractor, which does not damage the film seal.
As the pickup revolves just above the ground surface, the tines pick up and feed the hay into the flake forming chamber, where a "flake" of hay is formed before being pushed up into the path of the plunger, which then compresses it with great force (200 to 750 kilonewtons or 45,000 to 169,000 pounds-force, depending on model) against the existing bale in the chamber.
The rectangular shape also saves space and allows a complete solid slab of hay to be stacked for transport and storage.
Due to the huge rectangular shape, large spear forks, or squeeze grips, are mounted to heavy lifting machinery, such as large forklifts, tractors equipped with front-end loaders, telehandlers, hay squeezes or wheel loaders to lift these bales.
Besides using simpler machinery and being easy to handle, these small bales can also be used for insulation and building materials in straw-bale construction.
Convenience is also a significant factor in farmers deciding to continue putting up square bales, as they make feeding and bedding in confined areas (stables, barns, etc.)
In Europe, as early as 1939, both Claas of Germany and Rousseau SA of France had automatic twine-tying pick-up balers.
After 7 compression cycles are completed, making a cube of 14 or 21 bales they are tied with twine or banded into a bundle and ejected onto the ground.
When the sledge is full, a catch is tripped automatically, and a door at the rear opens to leave the eight lying neatly together on the ground.
Before electrification occurred in rural parts of the United States in the 1940s, some small dairy farms would have tractors but not electric power.
A worker then pushes the shredder along the barn aisle as it rips up a bale and spews it out in a continuous fluffy stream of material.
Industrial balers are typically used to compact similar types of waste, such as office paper, cardboard, plastic, foil, and cans, for sale to recycling companies.
Used in recycling facilities, balers are a packaging step that allows for the aforementioned commodities to be broken down into dense cubes of one type of material at a time.
After a specific material is crushed down into a dense cube, it is tied to a bale by a thick wire and then pushed out of the machine.
