# Bale stroke counter



## andyg (Aug 23, 2013)

How many use a bale stroke counter on their square baler? Does it help to make more uniform bales? The reason I am asking thinking of ways to help my dad to make better bales while driving a little faster he goes so slow while baling which is not bad just thinking he can drive a little faster while baling.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

andyg

Posted Today, 07:52 AM

How many use a bale stroke counter on their square baler? Does it help to make more uniform bales? The reason I am asking thinking of ways to help my dad to make better bales while driving a little faster he goes so slow while baling which is not bad just thinking he can drive a little faster while baling.

If you are running a small square baler, your operator's manual might tell, you or you can set your tractor to 540 rpm (or 1000 rpm, depending upon what your baler calls for) and count the strokes for one minute.

If you are running a NH 5050 it is a 79 stroke per minute machine and the NH 5060, 5070 and 5080 are 93 strokes per minute machines.

Uniform bales are made with a evenly feed machine (size of windrow and speed machine is running). This is where live power is great, along with a lot of gear speeds and auto-shifting.

If you have a JD 348 or a NH 5070, they both can 'eat' a lot of hay at 540 rpm, so your ground speed would not necessarily be slow, unless you have light windrows. Older balers are a different story.

What you may want to count is how many strokes (or slices) per bale, the higher the number, the more uniform the bales are IMHO.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

I agree flakes/blocks per bale is more important to bale formation than baler strokes per minute


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

I usually just count how many plunges the plunger makes in between knotter cycles in my head. I usually try to get 14-18 plunges or flakes per bale. It's not hard to do after you figure it out.
I don't sit there and count for every bale by any means but if I run into a heavy or light windrow and want to change speed accordingly I let the baler tell me the proper speed.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

We quickly found out that with my old New Holland 68 that large 4-5 and even 6 inch flakes of hay per stroke caused us inconsistent bale length, ragged edges. Yea - even with an old low capacity baler like the 68, you can stuff it full of hay and put the stackers on the wagon in defensive mode - no slack time, but the bale quality and especially length suffers. If the knotter is on the edge of tripping and a 5 inch flake of hay is mashed, your 36 inch bale might be 41 inches. IMHO - probably not a problem (including ragged edges, etc) if you are feeding you own stock, but for my horse customers, it's not good as visual is very important.

Slowed down a gear, ran at full 540 PTO rpm and along with some other adjustments/wore out part replacements, could make a very tight brick - IMHO as good as any baler produced today - but it was slower baling.

When we bought the 348 this past winter, the goal was not necessarily faster baling (though we have it), but consistant ability to get 12-18 inch strokes per minute and with that 2-3 inch flakes.

I can see how a bale counter would be nice - given the distractions of baling - but wouldn't recommend compromising the bale quality by moving to larger flake bales to go faster.

BTW - the old 68 is a 63-65ish stroke per minute baler and the 348 is a 93 stroke per minute baler.

Good luck,

Bill


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

I use a stroke counter and yes it is nice, but you can also stop every so often get out and count the flakes in a bale. If there to few slow down. If there are two many speed up. Two many strokes won't hurt the bale in fact make it more dense, but you are sacrificing efficiency. I like to keep mine between 12-16 strokes/flakes per bale. With my stroke counter I have got to where I just glance at it every couple minutes. It has really helped me associated windrow size with ground speed, so now it's pretty much instinctive on what to do.


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

One other way to do that. Get a newer baler, put 50hp in front of it, and go. Shift up until the the exhaust goes "Rrrum, Rrrum..." with each stroke. Just perfect, any faster and you'll run out of power half way trough a wad and get to pull it out of the baler by hand, in the hot sun, any slower and you're being inefficient. The plus side is you don't go through many shear pins.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

D


andyg said:


> How many use a bale stroke counter on their square baler? Does it help to make more uniform bales? The reason I am asking thinking of ways to help my dad to make better bales while driving a little faster he goes so slow while baling which is not bad just thinking he can drive a little faster while baling.


I use a stroke counter and don't know how I ever did without it......not really, but it certainly helps to make uniform bales. He very well may be able to catch another gear, if it were me I would count the flakes he is currently producing and see what it is, somewhere around 15 is great for me and my size bales (40-42") so each flake is +- 3"......so in relation to how large your bales are, figure out if you need more or less per flake and either gear him up.....or feed him more hay via raking....either way will work

Personally I'd feed him more hay, tough to teach an older dog new tricks 

Good luck and welcome to haytalk.....


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