# poteniometer problems need help!



## cdbrow2 (Oct 27, 2013)

Hello all, new the forums and was hoping maybe you guys could help me out.

I purchased a New Holland RB450 Utility that makes a 5x4 bale. I bought it with only 1500 bales through it and I have put maybe 500 through it this season. It has the Bale Commander II monitor and has both Net Wrap and Twine.

Now the problem, when I bought it I baled probably 200 bales no problem and then it started acting up, I would have it on the Automatic Net Wrap cycle and it would lower the duckbill and would do about a wrap and a half of 4 and then disengage cut the wrap and the alarms would go off on the monitor telling me the actuator was out of position for too long. I could get it to wrap by putting it on manual and telling it to wrap but I would go through the cycle twice to get it to get enough wrap on because it would still disengage early. I had a shop come work on it and he replaced the potentiometer and I recalibrated it and it worked for 50 bales or so and then it started doing the same thing, only this time the duck bill would go half way down and then the alarms would go off like the potentiometer had a dead spot in it.I replaced it again and it worked for another 30 bales and now its starting to do it again. I have over $2000 in service calls and still no problem solved. I know my way around balers as we have had them my whole life however this one has me confused. If you are familiar with the RB 450U they are stripped down balers and very simple. I have checked the voltage at my battery as it is wired direct and at the time I had a full 12v, and if I go into the monitor and read the voltage on the actuator everything is within its range. Any Ideas? What can cause a potentiometer to keep going out? Voltage Surge? Thanks all


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Wow, I wouldn't think you would have any problem with voltage surge as this system operates on 12 dc and usually there is no problem with surges on this type of equipment, far more common is a lack of enuf voltage due to weak corroded cables and connections. Since you have had this many problems, I just have to ask, wth does the dealer say? Are they covering the parts when they fail? A potentiometer is a fairly simple device but very susceptible to dust, that being said, I replaced the pot on my br 7060 and it was packaged rather nicely for the job, it was completely enclosed and very hard for foreign objects including dust to enter. I don't think that would be the problem....far more likely may be the connection to the shaft of the pot, not sure how they accomplish that on your machine, I think mine had a D shaft, very hard to fail.....I really am at a loss as to why....unless the part is made in CHINA.....that may be the culprit....


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## cdbrow2 (Oct 27, 2013)

I thought it might have just been a faulty pot the second time it went out so we will see tommrow when I put ANOTHER new one on. I have it wired direct to the battery but seem to have enough voltage but have thought about getting a new separate battery and trying to run it on that. I bought the baler privately but had my normal dealership who we have bought A LOT of hay equipment through service it. They LOVE to sell hay equipment but only have one service guy and he is older and knows nothing about electrical or monitors so all I got out of that was an expensive service bill.Then I dealt with another shop that told me to replace the pot but when it went out they said they were busy with combines and didn't have time to deal with a baler. Im not worried about the covering the cost of the pot as those are cheap compared to their service calls. I cant seem to find a service dept that knows anything about hay equipment period, let alone enough to figure this problem out. I got charged $500 dollars last time for the guy to replace the pot and say "that should get it" and then leave. Im frustrated to say the least....


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

I have never made a round bale in my life, but bought a NH 4X5 to make mulch rounds at the landfill I was responsible for. We kept an air compressor on the truck that the baler guy would go to the field with to blow off the baler every so often-more than once a day. Seems there is a sensor or two that really does not like dust or trash and we would get all kinds of mischief if we did not blow off regularly. When we did, really no issues. Don't know if this is your issue or not, but you might want to consider.


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## cdbrow2 (Oct 27, 2013)

That is the second reply in regards to Dust, I try to keep it blown off however we were baling Sorghum sudan and clover and things were really dusty this year, with the lack of rain, and now that you say that I really had problems with it acting up when I was doing some reeds canary where water went across it and it was super dirty. Maybe this is a good lead...Ill blow it off really well and replace it again tommrow and see how long we get along with it.


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Is there a way to read the voltage at the actuator as it cycles? I know you checked it at the battery and the actuator and it was 12 vdc. What about when its under load or going through a cycle. Do you have a poor ground somewhere.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Bonfire said:


> Is there a way to read the voltage at the actuator as it cycles? I know you checked it at the battery and the actuator and it was 12 vdc. What about when its under load or going through a cycle. Do you have a poor ground somewhere.


Bonfire brings up a good point, the circuit is complete when the ground is properly connected, that's just as important as the "hot" lead. If nothing else, buy some electrical contact cleaner (denatured alcohol under pressure) and try to spray the pot, which may or may not be fairly easy to get to, it will have one of those long straws on it for access. I think the pot I bought was like $70, I may be wrong but I remember it being pricey....


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Get a service manual for your baler and skip the service call, changing one of those pots is not rocket science.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> Bonfire brings up a good point, the circuit is complete when the ground is properly connected, that's just as important as the "hot" lead. If nothing else, buy some electrical contact cleaner (denatured alcohol under pressure) and try to spray the pot, which may or may not be fairly easy to get to, it will have one of those long straws on it for access. I think the pot I bought was like $70, I may be wrong but I remember it being pricey....


I agree with the contact cleaner...a lot of the pots you get now days use graphite, carbon/plastic, ceramic/plastic for the element and cheap metal for the wiper. They build up corrosion in no time and are very susceptible to dust. See if you can find some good, old fashioned carbon tetrachloride to squirt in there, it'll work a lot better than the "safe" stuff they market today.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I'm not sure if it's possible or not, but pull up the diagnostics screen then press and hold the net wrap key and watch your voltage reading then. But it would also seem to me if you had a voltage problem it should be eating up motors not pots.

I had a 644 for about 8 years then have had my BR740A for at least 5 years now and haven't had to replace a potentiometer yet. Or like some suggested are the new ones using the cheapest ones they can find?


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## mike10 (May 29, 2011)

Although I work on a lot of NH balers, we do not have any RB balers in the area. What I suggest here may or may not apply to the RB. On the BR balers the duckbill is wider than the bale chamber. To let the duckbill enter the bale chamber there are slots cut out in the baler side sheets. Occasionally material builds up in these slots and will not allow the duckbill to fully enter the bale chamber. The duckbill may enter far enough to start the net but not far enough to tell the controller that it is fully inserted. The controller will detect a problem and will alert you with and error message and bring the duckbill home.

On the BR balers the duckbill potentiometer is calibrated at the fully inserted position, pre cut position and home position. I would think this would also be the case with the RB's. When you calibrate do you calibrate at the fully inserted position? If you received an operators manual for the bale command part, it should show you how to calibrate the potentiometers.

If this were a BR baler I would first look at the net roll counter switch. When the BR does not see the net move it will bring the duckbill home before the bale is fully wrapped and give you an error message.

What error code number is it giving you?

I don't think you have a potentiometer problem. They have been pretty much bullet proof.


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## cdbrow2 (Oct 27, 2013)

UPDATE:

I replaced the battery today, only because I bought the wrong one for another tractor and thought it couldn't hurt if for whatever reason that was my problem. I picked up a new pot today at the dealership that we buy our farm equipment from as these pots are very basic and found all over CASE/NH equipment and talked to the shop manager there, he said that these pots are nothing more than a bunch of coiled wires just a little thicker than a light bulb filament. He said he has knocked them out by just plugging a implement in and the power surge of plugging them in did it. He said to check all my harnesses to make sure there wasn't a bare wire that would ground out and create just enough of a short to burn the pot up. I put the pot on and recalibrated it. I checked my voltage and had like 14.3v off the battery the pot had like 7.2 in the up position and ran down to like 1.7v in the down position which were both within specs. I took it to the field and baled 37 bales and it never acted up a lick. Surely I didn't have that many bad pots in a row? this is why its so frustrating I cant find anything wrong I think I have it fixed and 100 bales from now itll do it again, makes it very difficult to try to figure out. Thanks for the help so far


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

cdbrow2 said:


> UPDATE:
> I replaced the battery today, only because I bought the wrong one for another tractor and thought it couldn't hurt if for whatever reason that was my problem. I picked up a new pot today at the dealership that we buy our farm equipment from as these pots are very basic and found all over CASE/NH equipment and talked to the shop manager there, he said that these pots are nothing more than a bunch of coiled wires just a little thicker than a light bulb filament. He said he has knocked them out by just plugging a implement in and the power surge of plugging them in did it. He said to check all my harnesses to make sure there wasn't a bare wire that would ground out and create just enough of a short to burn the pot up. I put the pot on and recalibrated it. I checked my voltage and had like 14.3v off the battery the pot had like 7.2 in the up position and ran down to like 1.7v in the down position which were both within specs. I took it to the field and baled 37 bales and it never acted up a lick. Surely I didn't have that many bad pots in a row? this is why its so frustrating I cant find anything wrong I think I have it fixed and 100 bales from now itll do it again, makes it very difficult to try to figure out. Thanks for the help so far


That is strange......gettin close to Halloween, strange occurrences indeed...I have no rational explanation, except that potentiometers usually don't give problems.....but in this case it seems to fix the problem to replace the pot so.......and the cycle repeats itself. Did you check the harness for fraying of connections or conductors? If the current draw on a short was enuf to burn the pot, I'd say they need to look at the fuse rating more carefully, but be that as it may, it's certainly worth checking into.....not sure what else to do


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## Hoot99 (Aug 12, 2014)

This might be a little late in responses, but I have one also. I have found that dust buildup occurs quite frequently and causes my netwrap to either wrap 3/4 of the bail or not at all after 10 bails of dusty hay. I noticed that a buildup of dust at the point where the duckbill is extended causing the net to be pushed aside and only wrap 3/4 of the bail. At one point one of my bails did not wrap at all. Investigation showed that same buildup was also located in the middle of the bailer holding back the netwrap from going into the rotating bail. This is a pain to go inside the bailer after 10 bails and push out the dust, but it does work again afterwards. Mine was new so I am asking the dealer if there is a fix. I will post an update when I get a response.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

I would pay close attention to the info that Mike 10 gave you. I have had those issues also even when I clean my baler after every use. Unless you have a short somewhere, you should not be blowing pots. Mike


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I can't see it being a dust problem, I made over three hundred very late and dusty round bales to finish up first cutting and never had a problem. But the baler also gets blown off after every use.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

A good leaf blower is a baler's best friend.

Ralph


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## Hoot99 (Aug 12, 2014)

Hoot99 said:


> This might be a little late in responses, but I have one also. I have found that dust buildup occurs quite frequently and causes my netwrap to either wrap 3/4 of the bail or not at all after 10 bails of dusty hay. I noticed that a buildup of dust at the point where the duckbill is extended causing the net to be pushed aside and only wrap 3/4 of the bail. At one point one of my bails did not wrap at all. Investigation showed that same buildup was also located in the middle of the bailer holding back the netwrap from going into the rotating bail. This is a pain to go inside the bailer after 10 bails and push out the dust, but it does work again afterwards. Mine was new so I am asking the dealer if there is a fix. I will post an update when I get a response.


I have not blown the dust on my bailer ever, and this is my 2nd year of bailing.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Hoot99 said:


> I have not blown the dust on my bailer ever, and this is my 2nd year of bailing.


Perhaps you should? I blow mine off during intensive baling and after every baling.....


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## mike10 (May 29, 2011)

A picture would sure help us understand where the dust is accumulating


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

rjmoses said:


> A good leaf blower is a baler's best friend.
> 
> Ralph


Yes it is, you can't see if you have any stress cracks or a bearing getting ready to go out when everything is covered in last weeks (years) chaff.

A leaf blower is also indispensable if your going from field to field and don't want to spread wild oats, cheat grass, etc.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Haven't had a pot problem yet with my NH BR in 6 years of baling dusty dirty cornstalks. I do try to blow things clean on a daily basis, but after a dozen bales you wouldn't know the difference.


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

I have the same baler (RB450) in twine/net. Prior to using it the first time this year, I pulled all the Molex connectors and put di-electric grease inside and reconnected them. I blow mine off after every haymaking session either with a leaf blower or shop air. Same goes for the square baler and the mowers. SOP with me.

With any NH baler or hay tool that uses the double linked U-joint on the PTO shaft, be sure to afhere to the lubrication schedule. Thats a thousand dollar part at your friendly NH dealership.

IMO, the electronics are not the best but not the worst either. ...

I believe the two things I don 't care for far as the 450 is concerned is one, it's inconvenient (just a plain PITA) to reach the duckbill notch and pull the net tail through while the net catches on the sheet metal net/twine divider shelf and makes an easy job hard and two, the pickup isn't wide enough plus it's partially hidden by the net hood.

Gathering wheels would be a nice option but NH wants the Fort Knox price of $1500.00 for 2 wheels and 2 arms. I realize they have a patent on the following aspect of the arms but 1500 bucks, you have to be kidding me.

I believe I'll buy a set of rubber wheels from here, machine the hubs and fabricate the brackets. It's not rocket science by any means.


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## Hoot99 (Aug 12, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> Perhaps you should? I blow mine off during intensive baling and after every baling.....


No electricity in my fields. Gas blower to be considered


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I would recommend Stihl, the assisted pull is nice although I opted out and went with standard pull....too cheap, and skeptical


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## Hoot99 (Aug 12, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> I would recommend Stihl, the assisted pull is nice although I opted out and went with standard pull....too cheap, and skeptical


I opted for a battery one, cheap too, CFM was highest but it pretty low output.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Real happy with my stihl blower. Assisted start? Most of the time I forget that both my big saws even have a compression release.

Have the Stihl BG86, even last winter when it was so cold I had to keep shutting the dryer off to beat the ice of the intake screen the Stihl popped right off every time.


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## Hoot99 (Aug 12, 2014)

I got a response from my dealer about the dust buildup causing the net wrap to either not cover the bail or only a portion of the bail.

*t<esolutlon:*

JRL 15 AUG 2014 Update:

Good pictures of the net not spread on the LH side - Pictures of the debris build up at the twine knife would be help for future reference.

1. If the customer is planning on only using the net wrapper and not twine then remove the twine linkage and twine knife mount part # 84235140 to help reduce the crop buildup in this area and not affect the net spreading.

​
2. Currently there has been no modifications or changes made to the twine wrapper and twine knife area to reduce crop buildup.

3. Assuming the net wraps good with full spread when the debris is removed.

If not, there are other steps that can be taken such as net tension/net

brake adjustments.

I asked for the adjustments but have not heard a response yet. In my operation removing the twine is not an option, besides the dust buildup there is not causing the issue. There is a shelf on the left hand side that the buildup is causing the net to move into the middle of the bail instead on the end.


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## Roger7759 (Jun 4, 2019)

Have same issue with my 450 I have two codes on mine 101.04 low voltage on sensor or shorted 
And a 110.04 which my book doesn't tell me what it is 
Also does anybody have part number for pot going to try to order one online 
Thanks


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