# Square Baler Min HP - All Over The Place!!!!!!



## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

As I posted over the weekend, the deal or lack thereof for a JD 348 wasn't something I was interested-in, so I'm window shopping again.

Spend some more time today with JD, MF and NH brochures and WOW - the hp requirements are all over the place!

Punching out the same 14" x 18 inch bale too!

New Holland BC5070 = 75hp minimum (3715 lb baler)

New Holland BC5060 = 62hp minimum (3400 lb baler)

New Holland BC5050 = 35hp minimum (3085 lb baler)

Massey Ferguson 1840 = 50hp minimum (3500 lb baler)

Massey Ferguson 1837 = 35hp minimum (3050 lb baler)

John Deere 348 = 35hp minimum (3110 lb baler)

What's the deal - why so much variance in hp MINIMUM horsepower requirements?

40 hp difference between the JD 348 and NH 5070 minimum hp requirements!

Remember this post from a few days ago on plugging a NH baler:

http://www.haytalk.com/forums/topic/33697-anyone-ever-plugged-a-nh570575-or-bc56070-baler/

The International 633 racing around that field was pulling a NH BC5060 with an engine with gross hp of 52. Gross ain't PTO, so the PTO hp was something less.

I'd hate to see what the maximum hp requirement is for the BC5070! Really - 75hp minimum to put the thing in the field and bale light windrows? Boggles my pea brain.

I've got 50 PTO to work with - the JD 348 is Deere's highest capacity baler and 35hp minimum req'd. The BC5070 is 10 inches wider on the pick-up than the BC5060, same strokes per minute (at 93) and 13 more hp is required? The MF 1837 has the same strokes per minute (100) as the 1840 - yet 15 more hp is required and I think they both share the same width pick-up?

The ONLY justification I can see for this minimum hp has more to do with the weight of a tractor at a given PTO hp for safety, as in going down a hill - than minimal hp to drive the baler.

I've read much about round balers pushing a tractor down a hill or trying to jack knife it when fully loaded. Anyone had their square baler (without wagon or accumulator) push them down a hill. I kind of see it a bit in the BC5070 at 3715 lbs, but maybe that's a stretch?

So what's the skinny on hp and the above balers, why the big variance in hp requirements? It sounds like I could NEVER run a NH BC5060 or BC5070 or MF 1840 on my little 50 PTO hp tractor and with it, just culled out a bunch of otherwise very nice balers.

I understand that when you double and triple up the windrows, crank up the speed and max out the reasonable capacity of the baler, the hp goes up and my 50hp PTO tractor could never run the baler to capacity. But something below that without destroying the tractor????

Any thoughts? Just curious,

Thanks!

Bill


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Among other things, the HP requirement has a lot to do with the plunger weight and strokes/minute. The heavier machines allow you to punch out more bales/minute than the light duty machines. If you look at the specs across all these machines, you'll probably find the strokes/minute matches the HP requirements.

Then there's the other things.....like what they want you to believe.

Ralph


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## bglz42 (Oct 5, 2009)

I don't know about the others, but I have a JD 328 and used my JD 5045D in front of it for a season. Had no problems at all. Ran it like a champ...


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

The NH minimum is the minimum to take advantage of what it's capable of. The Deere minimum is truly a minimum. Basically.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Just go get an 85+ hp tractor and then you won't have to worry about min HP.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Yrs ago I baled hay with a JD BO(14 hp) pulling a JD 214 pto baler. I didn't set any bale per hr records but I go the hay baled. Back when 4 cyl engines were common on sq balers the engines were around 30-35 hp. I'll bet a NH 5070 can be pulled baling hay with a lot less than 75 HP. I didn't state pulled with a lot less HP punching out 450+ sq bales per hr.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Until I bought the bale bandit to pull behind the baler I ran my 5070 with a 70 hp tractor (JD 3020 gas) on steep hills and had no problem. Never felt like the baler was pushing me around or going to jackknife. I never felt that I didn't have enough power to run the baler at capacity either but when baling near full capacity it was for sure a load on the tractor and I wouldn't have wanted much less tractor to run the baler.

As to why a JD 348 has a min hp of 35 I'm not fully positive but I remember reading somewhere that it had sometimg to do with the fact that there is a gearbox between the driveline and flywheel on JD balers that causes it to take less hp from the tractor to power the flywheel while on the NH the driveline directly powers the flywheel and takes more hp from the tractor on the higher capacity bales to keep it turning. My memory of this is a bit fuzzy but I think I got it right. I have never ran a JD baler but I have a hard time believing that a 35 hp tractor on a 348 would be a good idea.

I have baled a few thousand bales with a MF/hesston 1837 and compared to my 5070 it is obvious that it doesn't take as much hp to run but I still think that 35 hp is awful low.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Interesting comments everyone - thanks!



8350HiTech said:


> The NH minimum is the minimum to take advantage of what it's capable of. The Deere minimum is truly a minimum. Basically.


I thought of that too. I would imagine that since "hay" is New Holland traditionally, the last thing they want is to be pasted about advertising a 35hp requirement, sell a pile of balers to Ford 3000 or MF 135 owners and get slammed for having their spanking new BC5070 operating at a crawl - spitting out bales no faster than their old NH 273.



Teslan said:


> Just go get an 85+ hp tractor and then you won't have to worry about min HP.


Yep - I'll bring that up to the Wife/Boss after she calms down from me wanting another baler. OTOH - if you could send me a check.... 

Seriously - though, the thought behind a higher capacity baler is to have capacity head room for the day when/if I ever up the hp. It would be nice to get that "85+ hp tractor" and have a baler that could take advantage of it vs buying a higher hp tractor and another baler at a later date.

Bill


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## broadriverhay (Jun 13, 2014)

I was running a NH 273 with a JD 2510 for about 5 years no problems. I was baling sometimes 400 bales per hour. I had a knife crash in mid season so I rushed out and bought a BC 5070 unseen. When the salesman delivered it to my field I said oh my what have I done. The thing is huge compared to the old NH 273. I hooked it behind the JD 2510 since that is the tractor I have always baled with , and no problems. I don't really push the baler to hard , still no more than 400 per hour. I also have a JD 3010 and Kubota 7040 but just prefer to bale with the 2510. It is rated at about 53 PTO HP. The 2510 does surge some when you hit a heavy spot in the windrow but not too bad. If you would like to talk about the BC5070 send me a PM and I will call you .I really like the BC 5070, very consistent bales.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Used to run an NH 276 with thrower wagons, a Super 77 gas would run it, a Super 88 diesel was better, a 1600 diesel was better yet, you really wanted to get some hay baled but the 1855 diesel on it at 100hp and then you really got something done.

All depends on how much hay you have to bale and how soon you want to get done.

In heavier hay a minimum horse tractor may not have a slow enough gear.


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## GOOD HAY (Aug 8, 2010)

When I was a kid we ran an IH 45 with a Massey 22, got the hay baled but no land speed records set. 20 years ago when I bought the NH 570 we had a Case IH 495 to run it, we did that for about 5 years doing 8-10000 bales. As the years progressed so did our baling tractors and we now run it with 75 hp and it just keeps getting better. It all depends on how much you need to get done in a day and the budget. I am sure that most of us started at the bottom of the scale and gradually made improvements as we could afford them. Definitely more is better but go with what works for you.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

I ran our JD 348 on a Ford 5000 (60 PTO HP) all summer this year and it did a good job, but didn't have any reserve power. Still put up just under 4000 small squares before I finished everything off in round bales. In past years, we put a International 784 (67 PTO HP) on the baler and it had a little bit of extra power, but I'd still like a little more. These two tractors would easily put 300 bales per hour on the ground in mildly rolling hills (nothing too steep). It will be interesting to see what the "new" JD 4230 (100 PTO HP) will do on the baler next summer. My biggest worry on using the smaller tractors (especially the older ones) on high capacity balers is overworking the tractor and getting into some big repairs (read $$$ here). I'm pretty sure we will be needing to redo the PTO clutch in the 5000 soon (original one as far as I know) and the PTO clutch went out on the 784 last year (while running the baler). If you are running a smaller tractor on the baler, just keep that in mind, don't push things too hard and it should be fine until you can get that bigger tractor in the future.

As far as problems with the baler pushing the tractor around, I don't think you should have any problem with that unless you are running a very small tractor, have steep hills or are pulling a loaded wagon behind the baler. The one time we had issues with this on our farm was when using an older NH (forget the model) and had an almost full load of hay in the wagon behind it. The tractor and baler took a turn at the bottom of the hill, but the wagon kept going straight... the way the hitch on the back of the baler was mounted ended up caving in the side of the bale chamber. That was the year we started using the JD 336 that is now our backup baler.


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## GOOD HAY (Aug 8, 2010)

Josh, made me think of something else. The 495 that we used to run the baler with now has some slack somewhere in the transmission / pto drive which I would attribute to the years being over worked on baler duty. However in those days we used that tractor for everything except pulling the wagons back to the barn. So, many days it would run from 7:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. I wouldn't want to do that on a small tractor now and probably couldn't.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Just to add to the numbers are all over the ball park - if you look at NH's web sites in foreign countries, Austria, New Zealand, the BC5060 requires 45 PTO hp and the BC5070 requires 60 PTO hp. New Holland has a category country listed as "African Countries." There, the BC5060 requires 40 PTO hp and the BC5070 requires 50 PTO hp.

Bill


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