The new 3m Fella SM3065 Trans KC, trailed mower conditioner is a clean-sheet design that introduces a range of innovative features including a centre-pivot drawbar, a heavy-duty transport chassis frame as well as Fella’s exclusive driveGuard protection.
“A central-pivoting drawbar provides the huge advantage of being able to operate to the left and right, like a reversible plough,” Fella’s export area manager David Blackwood said. “This brings a number of benefits; for a start, you don’t have to work in lands. This increases field efficiency because there is no time wasted driving to the next bout and it reduces the amount of short-work. It also cuts headland compaction because the ground is only driven over once.”
Prototypes of the Fella SM3065 T have been on test for the past three years and have worked in heavy grass crops in the UK, Sweden and New Zealand.
“Actually, we had a prototype, disguised as a current machine, at work at last year’s Welsh grassland event and it was one of few mowers that was able to cope in the atrocious conditions and continued to cut all day,” Mr Blackwood added.
Mounted in a new chassis, the mower bed features Fella’s unique shaft drive to each disc unit. This unique system increases efficiency, with much less power loss across the bed compared with gear trains.
The driveline is protected by Fella’s award-winning driveGuard overload system. Instead of shear bolts or pins, this simple, cost-effective device employs special external discs, fitted to the top of the disc units, that transmit the drive from the central shaft to the discs through small shear-point ‘tabs’.
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| The Reco dealer network distributes Agco’s Fella grassland machinery in the UK. |
Should the discs hit an obstruction, the tabs shear off to protect the driveline. Replacement simply involves removing a cover, undoing a set of bolts that hold the discs in place and slotting in a new disc before replacing and tightening the bolts. With a socket on a ratchet, the process can be accomplished in just a few minutes.
As well as being faster and easier to replace, the disc-system doesn’t suffer cause damage to the driveshaft, unlike shear bolts and pins that elongate their threads and mounting holes and potentially contaminate the oil in the bed.
The completely new chassis supports the mower on its transport wheels, which provide 600mm a lift height for maximum clearance on the headland turns, keeping the bed well above mown swathes.
Integral suspension provides the mower with a generous 400mm of travel in work with the geometry and adjustments allowing operators to set exactly the amount of flotation required, to closely follow undulations while preventing the bed from digging in. The cutting height is infinitely adjustable, and is set without tools to suit all crops and working conditions.
The crop is conditioned by Fella’s novel tine-on-tine rotor, which efficiently combs the grass through the system. The level of conditioning intensity can be altered, without using any tools, to five different settings.
Fella green harvest equipment is retailed through the Reco dealer network in the UK and by Farmec dealers in Ireland.
For more information visit: www.fella.eu.
