# Krone Fortima problems



## Farmboyinaz (Jun 28, 2020)

I'm in need of some help y'all. I'm in Az and round balers are almost non-existent out here, but I'm crazy and wanted to try something new. I bought a used New Holland 7060 at auction to get the ball rolling and test out the viability of round balers out here. After some struggling, I got it to work halfway decent and made about 500 bales or so before deciding to upgrade and take this round baling more serious. I stumbled across a '12 Fortima 1500 with only 2150 bales on it and priced very reasonably. I bought it out of Georgia and it showed up a few days ago. After struggling with the pickup and rear door hydros, I found solutions elsewhere on this forum that helped immensely and I'm hoping to drum up some more help on these new issues, mainly because there is nobody within 6 hrs of here that uses Krone round balers, so even the local dealer wont be of much help. The current issues are this: The baler showed up with very little net wrap left on the roll. After struggling with the rear door for a few bales, I was only able to make two decent bales before almost running out. On the second bale, the wrap wouldn't stop unrolling when it was supposed to so I just shut the pto off and opened the door. After that bale, I decided to just put the new roll of wrap in that I got from a JD dealer on the way back from Georgia. I believe that I got it fed in properly, but now the netwrap refuses start on the bale. I can see the roll spin about 1 revolution at the start of the cycle, but then it stops. I push the wrap cycle button on the monitor several times and it does the same thing. Out of frustration, I end up opening the door and digging out the now unwrapped straw and starting over. The wrap seems to be getting pushed back up into where its coming from. I don't know if that is the reason it's not feeding and rolling onto the bale, or if that is a result of it not feeding properly. Also, and I don't know if this is related or a completely separate problem, but at times there is a considerable amount of straw that gets fed up the front side of the baler to the point of boiling over onto the roof of the twine-box/netwrap storage area. It's almost like there is some sort of guard missing to prevent the crop from rolling up the front side of the chain slats. I have read and re-read the owners manual and searched youtube for any sort of guidance or solutions, but no luck. I'm hoping there are some Krone customers or salesman out there on this forum that can help this Az farmboy out. I apologize for being long winded, but I just wanted to explain my situation as thoroughly as possible to paint the best picture of my situation. Any and all suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks for your time y'all.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Welcome Farmboy tp HT, hope Dawg, Krone1 or someone else with Krone experience chips in here, there are some great minds that might just help you out, have a little patience. 

Larry


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Welcome to Haytalk FarmboyinAz....I'll go ahead and ask, got any good hunting ground out your way? 
Can you post some pics of the baler and the monitor (Krone has a bunch) it may be of help. Pictures are very easy to post, just go down to "more reply options" select the pic and "add to post" and there ya have it....
There are a good many owner of Krone balers on this forum...in addition, (and this is kinda secretive) we have an inside gig with the factory....there is a ....well, I think it's a guy  (I hate to be presumptive given today's climate) anyway whatever it is, I think it has German ties (somewhere in the bloodline) and he/she/it knows a good deal about the Krone Niemeyer line (ok, it's been around for a while, always willing to lend a hand where it's needed, sounds like you're a good candidate. 
I have a F155 so probably not much help, but it sounds like your net knife never returned to home position. Take some pics of that net routing if you can, they are (at least my f155) fairly hard to thread, we usually wait till the last bale and stop the pto during the tie cycle, then change and tye the net to the old net and let the machine pull it thru.....


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## krone.1 (Jul 28, 2013)

I just saw your post. I will be at a keyboard tomorrow and reply


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## Trillium Farm (Dec 18, 2014)

Welcome to HT, but I have another question for you, why pick up a type of baler whose workings are unknown in your neck of the woods and no dealer nearby, masochism? :blink:


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## krone.1 (Jul 28, 2013)

The Fortima is a solid baler. It is the later version of our VarioPack, which developed into a good baler also. You need a SCV with a float position to operate it properly. The yellow hose is the pickup and should go on a valve by itself. The red is the tailgate raise and the blue is the return hose which needs to be a zero pressure return. Pull back on the SCV lever to raise, then push the lever all the way forward into the float position to lower and leave the lever in the float position.

There is a Net/Twine mode in the monitor, if the monitor is set for twine, the net knife won't drop.

The net channel has to be completely clean. If the baler has been run in haylage it will have a material build up in the net path. After you identify where the net knife is, you can feel up in the net channel. If there is build up in there the net will do exactly as described. It has to be clean all the way across to the sides. Once you get it clean if you will clean it every couple of days it is simple to keep clean.

Check the condition of the rubber roller. Any knife cuts or gouges will cause the net to stick the the roller and wrap.

The brake disc needs to be rust free and the brake pad needs to be free of glazing.

Good luck


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## Farmboyinaz (Jun 28, 2020)

Trillium Farm said:


> Welcome to HT, but I have another question for you, why pick up a type of baler whose workings are unknown in your neck of the woods and no dealer nearby, masochism? :blink:


I'm truly not a glutton for punishment, I simply needed to make big bales on a very tight budget. I am starting a forage division of my business from scratch with no help. I picked up a used Ks state DOT mower tractor at auction and my first round baler(the New Holland 7060) at the same time. I was able to get the ball rolling for less out-of-pocket than it would have cost just for a used-up big square baler. I'm also not trying to haul them very far, which is why everyone around here bales up squares, because they ship better. Even after the Krone purchase, I'm still money ahead, There are two Krone dealers within 20 miles of me so I thought I'd be safe. I'm sure we'll get this thing figured out and it will be the "cats ass" that I hoped it would be.


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## Farmboyinaz (Jun 28, 2020)

krone.1 said:


> The Fortima is a solid baler. It is the later version of our VarioPack, which developed into a good baler also. You need a SCV with a float position to operate it properly. The yellow hose is the pickup and should go on a valve by itself. The red is the tailgate raise and the blue is the return hose which needs to be a zero pressure return. Pull back on the SCV lever to raise, then push the lever all the way forward into the float position to lower and leave the lever in the float position.
> 
> There is a Net/Twine mode in the monitor, if the monitor is set for twine, the net knife won't drop.
> 
> ...


Thank you for all of the helpful info. On the last day we tried to bale, I took it to the shop at the end of the day and(out of frustration) spent about 2 hours blowing out every little nook and crevice I could find. A LOT of mud and grass clumps came out from where you were describing, so I'm a little optimistic at this point that we found the wrapping issue. We are going to try it again tomorrow. Do you have any insight on the crop buildup in front of the front elevator chain? We are baling up short and very dry wheat straw, and it wont stop rolling up into that front area. I'm honestly considering welding a 2"-3" bar across the space between the front elevator chain and the starter roller to kind of block that passage off. Does that make any sense to you?


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## krone.1 (Jul 28, 2013)

Is it building up on top of the pickup in front of the chain? There is a finger guard that fits on top of the pickup that holds the crop down as it goes into the chamber. Is it on your baler? You probably wouldn't need it for high moisture crop. It may have been removed.


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

You put a new roll of surface wrap in and now it won't complete a cycle?

To install a new roll you shoulda lifted up and locked out the stretcher bar (I think that's what it's called. Each end is curved to stretch the net ends over the bale edge (that's adjustable.)). Did you pull that lock bar to let the stretcher bar fall back down? If it's left locked out it won't work. It'll start but stop and sound the monitor alarm.

As mentioned. The blue marked hose needs to be a case drain. I plug the door and case drain into the same remote. Pickup on a 2nd remote. You must (in my case) bale with the door remote in the float position. You have to have a route for the baler to return oil as your balling and bale size increases. You could also plumb that case drain right into the rear end of the tractor with a quick coupler. That would be safest to prevent damage to the baler. When you eject a bale, pull the remote fully. You want to recharge the tension system when the door gets to the end of its stroke.

Of course there's the park/bale valve on the front right of the baler. Make sure it's in bale. Before you unhook it or finish for the day, switch it to park. This returns all the oil in the tension system back to the tractor.

Don't know what to tell ya about the material build up in the front. I haven't seen that.

Be advised that with the chain and slat system, bale tension is independent left and right (that's a good thing). The cylinder on each side up top with the big chain going around it. That slat will lay flat across any mis shaped bale creating better "traction" to keep the bale spinning for baleage. Vs a straight tension bar for a belt baler.

I have this baler with a chopper. If you need pics from the manual, let me know.


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## Trillium Farm (Dec 18, 2014)

Although the OP was on the forum after Krone1 replied to him, he didn't even bother to thank anyone, he just left in silence.

I'd not bother to reply to him anymore.


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## FCF (Apr 23, 2010)

"he didn't even bother to thank anyone" Reread his reply on post #8. "Thank you for all the helpful info."


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## John KINCORA (Nov 2, 2020)

Hi Fella's - hope you're having a good season Stateside. Exceptional year/season here on the south western slopes of the great divide in New South Wales Australia. We've had several years of drought and fires to date - my sympathies to Californians who are copping it at the moment with fires.

I was looking on Google for anyone that has experienced netting problems with Krone round balers and come across this site. Looks a good all round informative site, so I thought I'd sign up and join in the forum to.

Anyway, I've just bought myself a Fortima 1800MC to bale some cereal hay, and have had some issues with the net getting caught up in the rubber roller which in turn appears to stop the net wrapping around the bale in the chamber. There was some net wrapped around the roller - probably from the previous owner/operator who didn't bother to clear it off. I've had the local Krone dealership techo out, and he stated clear it off without leaving any cuts or marks on the rubber roller or you will continue to have wrapping problems. Took me about 2 hours to carefully remove the offending netwrap - so here's hoping - I'll be out tomorrow to see how it goes. I've managed to make 250 4 footers with the net on the roller with several restarts, let's hope this solves the problem and I get an uninterrupted run.

John KINCORA


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## clowers (Feb 11, 2011)

Good luck John, there are some very knowledgable hay men on this site.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Good luck John and welcome to Haytalk, quite a few on here from the “land down under”, very interesting to hear how it differs.....


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

John

Welcome to HT from Texas

I wonder if Krone recommends applying powder to net feed rubber roller similar to other baler manufacture's to help offset moisture on roller?


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