# NH discbine



## LukeS (Feb 24, 2015)

Thinking about updating our 1465 to a discbine and am wondering what models would be good ones about the same size. Any goods or bads and anything to look out for?


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## LukeS (Feb 24, 2015)

Or any inputs on JD or Vermeer.


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## Orchard (Mar 12, 2013)

Luke you are going from something worth maybe $5K to something costing anywhere from $6K used o $20K new.many posters

This question has be asked dozens of times here.

If you are going new, I cant help much but others can.

If used, make sure each individual cutting module feels solid with no slop or play. Many posters here feel that discbines are very well liked such that finding a good used one is almost impossible. A retirement auction may be the best place to start.


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## LukeS (Feb 24, 2015)

I know it will be up in price but it will be worth it when it cuts cutting time in 1/2. We would go used. I've bought many things before so I guess I'm mostly looking for the goods and bad.

Thanks, Luke


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## Snow Farmer (Aug 30, 2011)

My 2bits:

We moved to a disc mower conditioner from a sickle mower/conditioner about ten years ago, bought new, a Massey 1369.

Noticed immediately that we could cut much faster, and it never plugged. We have no rocks so a set of knives would last several seasons.

One thing, the Massey gave us grief cutting a thick crop of oat hay/grass. It left clumps of crop uncut. I checked underneath a few times, everything was working, it just left random areas uncut. I borrowed a neighbour's NH discbine and it went through just fine.

I have heard that the Massey does not work well in straight alfalfa, never tried it on that. I guess it does not like the thick leafy stuff.

For 2018 we have a new Kuhn TCD with Digifingers conditioning. Looking forward to it with medium to high hopes.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Everybody moved to a discbine here not so many sickles anymore. One thing to watch out for some of the older ones especially if you have a little bit of rocks. Whereas the cutter bar was all one unit and if anything was damaged it was very timely and cost consuming to fix and of course those early models like that had no stone protection or Rock protection.. some of the earlier machines did a terrible job at cutting thin hay. And of course make sure you have enough horsepower some of the machines are horsepower Hogs


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

How many ponies does your mowing tractor have? Like endrow mentions, these machines will take a good bit more oomph than your haybine. Your 1465 is a 9' 3" machine I believe. I'd consider looking for a good used H7220 if you want to stay with the same width, and you want roll conditioning.


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## LukeS (Feb 24, 2015)

110 HP and I was looking at the NH H7230 but am open to other colors, I just don't know as much about them.


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

I run our 7230 with a 7400 JD no problem we have some hills but nothing to big we went from a haybine to a diskbine long ago I would not go back to a haybine I would quit first. We cut 7 to 10 MPH no plugs no problems with odd shaped fields could go faster but I don't like doing a ping pong ball imitation in the cab. Buy new if you can unless you know who you are buying from. Changing disk blades is way easier the working on a sickle but a rock will do a lot more damage to a diskbine. We have 250 acres and 7230 has worked well but you may what to look into the NH 310 or 312 they are center pivots and are about 5K to 6K more good luck and you will not be disappointed.


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## Idaho Hay (Oct 14, 2016)

I have a 7230 with the swivel hitch, and absolutely love it. I would never want to go back to a sickle machine, that's for sure! A 310 or 312 center pivot would be nice, but keep in mind that those models are not made by New Holland, but by a company that they recently acquired (can't remember the name of the company, but European...I think).


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

LukeS said:


> 110 HP and I was looking at the NH H7230 but am open to other colors, I just don't know as much about them.


I pull my 1431 with a 110 hp tractor and have no issues unless it gets really late on first cutting and it goes down. No problem there unless its leaning into the machine then sometimes the conditioning rolls will grab it before its cut and that pulls incredibly hard. Course I used to have the same thing with my NH499 but it would just blow the pressure relief.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

LukeS said:


> Or any inputs on JD or Vermeer.


 The Deere mower conditioners are very good from what I have seen and heard....don't think you could go wrong buying one. Somedevildawg and Vol both have JD 630s and have been pleased. If I were buying I would lean heavily towards a JD over a NH but that is just my personal preference. No experience with a Vermeer but I think swmnhay runs a Vermeer.

Hayden


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

I just went through a year plus looking at disc mower conditioners, all brands, rollers (rubber, steel) and impellers, waffling as to keep going with a very nice sickle mower conditioner or getting a disc mower conditioner. In the end, I bought a new Krone mower conditioner at year's end.

Here are a few thoughts.....

I think they are all good, every brand. I'd recommend doing a lot of searching/reading prior to buying, new or used. Rolls vs flails, steel rolls vs rubber - you can find diehard experiences/opinions on all for both grasses and legumes - or not. I personally like machines with shear hub protection. I like New Holland's individual pods, but can't say I read much in the way of gear beds sharing common oil as being a prevalent problem. Also, I never really read much about one piece bars, i.e. Krone or Kuhn getting destroyed and having to replace the entire cutter bar vs a sectionalized one such as JD or NH. It is, IMHO, a nice feature to have on a moco - shear hubs and individual pods from a potential damage and repair standpoint. All gear vs gearbox and belts. I kind of like belts as they slip, but so do slip clutches on all gear drive units. Again, I don't read much negative on either. What I do read about is second cut/lighter cuts streaking, mostly due to rollers creating and air dam pushing over the cutter bar. I think the remedy is to lower the rpms or go with an impeller machine. You'll read complaints about SOME New Hollands, quality and cut of quality, but far more with zero issues. Can't back it up with facts, but I believe New Holland might sell more mower conditioners than anyone else, so more units out there and more potential for a lemon and/or unhappy customer vs everyone else.

New Holland IMHO has to be one of the easiest to serve as they have flip-up hoods everywhere; really nice. Again, a ton of these units sold and parts and forum internet support should be no problem for a generation.

JD moco's.... IMHO, they are some of the best. You just don't google them and find hardly any issues. Very clean cut, shear hub and modular construction. They were my number 1 choice, until I bought a Krone...

Vermeer - I seriously considered one. I think they are great, however, they have been Lely machines painted Vermeer yellow with decals. Lely hay tools were bought out by AGCO last year, supposedly the plant the mocos are made at was/is to close. Vermeer sales guys told me no problem, Vermeer will continue to support and they have the cutter bar. I don't think Vermeer has done a very good job directly explaining to the customer the path forward. Others may not agree - OK. I scratched them off my list due to what I consider an unknown future, machine and parts.

Kuhn. I think very good machines. The only 9ft made with a 2 point swivel hitch and steel rollers - if that is of desire. I don't like Kuhn's shear system and it appears to me the whole pod shears off vs a roll pin or sacrificial splined disc like NH has. To repair, I think you have to remove the pod from the machine and I just can't see doing that cleanly while in the field mowing and it looks expensive. IMHO, the #1 reason not to buy Kuhn (this my personal rant) is their in ability to make operators and parts manuals available in the internet for free download (pdf's) or viewing or purchase - insane!

MF/Hesston - none really around here (mountains of VA), except for the older New Idea 5209 design - which is a very good mower and lower hp input too. IMHO the down side of this mower (now numbered MF 1359) is no shear hubs. The bigger Hesston/MF mowers get good reviews.

Krone: One piece cutter bar, welded steel with gear bed and an ingenious shear hub system that uses a cheap to replace roll pin for shear and once sheared, spins up out of the way of the neighboring hubs to prevent damage. All gear drive and 2 point swivel gear head standard. Just like JD's mocos, every video I've seen on youtube shows a very clean cut, even in the most tall/dense crop - amazing. The Krone cutter bar suspension system is a little different, you have to watch the videos, which I would recommend for all makes you are considering.

FWIW - my choice came down to a JD 625 8ft or a Krone 2801cv 9ft mower conditioner; impeller machines. I wanted the JD, but the Krone I bought was a new left over 2016 model and got a smoking deal on it. The 625 that I wanted was pretty much bare bones, except for the equal angle hitch option I wanted. The Krone I bought is 1 ft wider and decked out with every option except hydraulic cutterbar tilt and was a goodly amount lower in price than the JD. I bought it year end, so I'm sure that helped as did a cash deal. Fingers crossed... Before I forget, Krone IMHO has far and away the best online documentation of any manufacturer of disc mower conditioners. Huge info packed brochures, free downloads of both operators and parts manuals in pdf. Krone has a youtube channel with lots of videos of how their mowers work, features and even one showing how the cutter bar is manufactured at the factory.

Lastly, some folks strongly advise against going used on a disc mower conditioner. I kind of agree - sort of, especially if you are depending on it for dependable income, i.e. making hay when the sun shines vs waiting on a parts truck or repair when the weather envelope is slipping away. I don't know, I just felt for my comfort level, I can live with a lot of used equipment and probably even a disc mower conditioner, but felt for this mower I wanted to hit a homerun, so I bought new.

YMMV - good luck,

Bill


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## LukeS (Feb 24, 2015)

Thanks for the replies, we will keep all of this in mind when we start shopping. (hopefully soon)


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

leeave96 said:


> I just went through a year plus looking at disc mower conditioners, all brands, rollers (rubber, steel) and impellers, waffling as to keep going with a very nice sickle mower conditioner or getting a disc mower conditioner. In the end, I bought a new Krone mower conditioner at year's end.
> 
> Here are a few thoughts.....
> 
> ...


Yeah what I've been researching this for a while too and I agree with everything Bill said.

Kuhn's design just drives me nuts. Now, I'll say I've run a 3 point 9 foot "top service hub" style Kuhn mower (GMD 900 IIRC). They do a good job cutting, BUT... Kuhn REALLY screws you over when it comes to parts.

They ONLY sell their "top service hubs" as a UNIT piece... They DO NOT sell the parts individually. There's a lot to them-- a cut gear and splined shaft, double-row ball bearing, seal(s), and the hub it's all mounted in, and the top hub for the cutter disk that's bolted to the top. All one assembly, about $240 last time I checked.

Now, Kuhn's "protectadrive" system (IIRC the name correctly) is this-- the splined shaft between the gear down below the hub in the cutterbar (between the two idler gears on either side) that goes up through the double-row ball bearing, seals, and the mower disk ("turtle") hub up on top, is *about* an inch or so in diameter... so to protect the cutterbar, they MILL A SLOT down into this shaft down to about the size of a dime... This "dime size" little spindle of metal is the only thing connecting the gear in the cutterbar to the disk blade hub up on top. When you hit something like a rock, fence post, or whatever (gopher mound? fire ant pile? who knows what!) if it hits "wrong" or too hard, that little dime-size part simply twists off, and tosses the cutting disk and blades along with the top drive hub right out the back of the cutterbar... The bottom half of the shaft below the dime-size slot cut in the shaft keeps right on turning, just freewheeling along with the gear. Of course now you're leaving a 1 foot wide (or so) gap of uncut grass, so you get to stop and fix the problem.

Now, it'd be different if you could just go to your handy-dandy Kuhn dealer and pick up another one of those shafts-- even if the cut gear is part of it and you had to pay $75 bucks for it or something... but NO, that's not how it works. You cannot get *just the shaft* or even the shaft and gear as a piece, NO, you MUST BUY the ENTIRE ASSEMBLY, which at last count was a $240 part. Five bolts (IIRC) and it pops right out the top of the cutterbar (there's a video of this on YouTube showing them running it into a steel water pipe hammered into the ground, blowing the cutting disk out the back, then fixing it), though keeping the dirt, grass, fluff, and filth out of the oil bath cutterbar would seem more difficult to me, and ensuring a good seal for the new hub and gear that you just drop in the hole and wiggle it a little to get it to drop between the two side idler gears, after timing it correctly of course per the instructions... then you remove the four bolts from the top of the cutting disk to separate it from the now junk former disk hub, and bolt the cutter disk onto the new hub and tighten up the four bolts, and it's back to work...

I remember reading on here not too long after I signed up that some fellow was trying to outsource those double-row ball bearings, because, again, when they go, or the seals, it's a $240 fix, as you can ONLY buy the hub ASSEMBLY. Kuhn "claims" that they only sell the assembly because farmers are 'too dumb" to properly preload the bearing tension-- ie the disk top hub and the gear on bottom have to be tightened up on the shaft with the double-row ball bearing trapped in between, and overtightening or undertightening the bolt will put either too much preload on the bearing, making it too tight, running too hot, and prone to fail, OR not tight enough, meaning too much play, causing gear wear or damage or imbalance and vibration in the disk, and of course eating up the seal in the process... Okay, but farmers preload their wheel bearings all the time and probably a hundred other kinds of bearings working on various types and kinds of farm machinery, and manage to do okay. It's just a lame excuse for Kuhn to sell a $240 part instead of a $24 double-row ball bearing, or a $9 seal, or a $30 top disk hub, or a $40 bottom bearing hub, or a $60 shaft/gear assembly, or whatever, and allowing the farmer to reuse the other 4 parts of the assembly that AREN'T damaged...

THAT is why I wouldn't even *consider* buying a Kuhn...

Now, New Holland uses a "sacrificial shear hub" that has about 4 splines cut into it, and the rest are missing.... this hub bolts to the top of the splined shaft coming out of the cutterbar module gearbox, and if you hit something with the turtle/disk, the splines shear off and the turtle "gives" enough til whatever it is is out of the way... The problem is, the turtle disks are TIMED to one another and overlap, so if one hits something and "slows down or stops til it's out of the way" the other adjoining turtle disks can EASILY run smack-dab into it, which as 2250 RPM can make quite a mess... SUPPOSEDLY (and there's video of this too on YouTube) the adjoining disks just "knock it back into time" by giving it this gentle "love tap" from behind at 200 mph... (umm, YEAH!) The shear hub IS installed with a couple of belleville spring washers up top, one of which is splined to the shaft IIRC, which act as a "slip clutch" to keep the turtle spinning at cutterbar speed after the "shear splines" have sheared off when whatever it was got hit, preventing the cutterbar module gears from shearing or tossing teeth in absorbing the blow. BUT, the idea of the adjoining disks (and this IS in super-slow motion video on YouTube) "kicking this slow disk in the butt" at 2250 RPM, or about 200 mph blade speed where they overlap, just sorta makes me cringe... and I'm SURE it doesn't do any favors for the adjoining shear hubs and gears of the cutterbar modules...

BUT, after you hear the ear-splitting noise and change your shorts, you can fix the busted shear hub in about ten minutes without opening up the top of the gear case of the module to field dirt/fluff/dust. A $40 shear hub kit and ten minutes with a couple wrenches is all that's needed for installation and you're back in the field in about 10-15 minutes.

Krone has the best shear-hub system I've seen... their cutting disk hubs are screwed down onto threaded shafts, which are either RH or LH threads, depending which way the shaft and cutting disk is spinning. The hub is then "keyed" the hub drive shaft with a standard roll pin. When the disk hits something "immovable", the roll pin shears off, allowing the hub and blade disk turtle to spin freely on the shaft (well, actually, the shaft is spinning freely inside the now stationary or greatly slowed down disk hub). The shaft spins and screws the hub up the threads, raising it up out of the path of the adjoining overlapping disks... once it is up above them, it rides on a smooth, unthreaded portion of the shaft above the roll pin bore, with a C-clip or snap ring or whatever to keep the disk from being "tossed out the back" like the Kuhn... The cutting disk/turtle can either "spin along with the rest of the disks (but of course completely out of time with the others) or it can sit there wedged against whatever it hit, with the shaft and adjoining disks spinning freely beside it, without getting beat all to h3ll by the adjoining disks and "knocked back in time" by the adjoining disks like on the New Holland... yet it stays on top of the shaft, instead of getting "tossed out the back" like the Kuhn (call me funny but I don't like parts flying out the back of my hay mower at those speeds!)

To repair, simply tap out the broken roll pin with a punch, spin the disk back down the threads til the holes line up, and drive in a new roll pin... reinstall the cutter disk on the hub with four bolts (IIRC) and go back to work. No opening the gear case and getting dust/dirt and fluff in it... Of course the video demonstrating this is on YouTube as well...

Later! OL J R


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