New Holland's new DFR reverser for the CR combine harvester wins an award

New Holland has won a prize at the SIMA Innovation Awards 2019 for the DFR dynamic feed roll reversing system on the CR combine harvester.

The international jury of the SIMA Innovation Awards 2019 awarded the bronze medal to the DFR dynamic feed roll reversing system on the CR combine harvester. This innovative feature allows the operator to clear a blockage in the dynamic feed roll from the cab, saving an enormous amount of time and making the most of the productivity of the world's most powerful combine harvester. This new function complements the cutter bar and feeder conveyor reverser and the concave overload protection system, for increased protection against crop overload.

Lars Skjoldager Sørensen, Harvesting Product Manager at New Holland, said: ?We are particularly pleased with this innovative feature. It allowed us to meet a huge challenge: maximizing combine harvester uptime. A blockage is always possible, and customers do not want to leave the cab to fix the problem and lose precious time. Thanks to our DFR reverser, they can do it very quickly without leaving their seat.?

The DFR reverser offers many benefits: blockages are easy to clear from the cab, but above all the time needed to carry out this operation is incredibly reduced, now taking only 10 minutes instead of the usual 2 hours. The cost of harvesting with a high-performance combine harvester such as the CR9.90 together with a tractor and trailer can rise to 600 to 800 ? per hour, with 50 fewer tonnes harvested, based on a capacity of 5-6 ha/hour and 8-10 tonnes/ha.

The feed roll reversing system, which consists of a hydraulic cylinder, a ratchet system and a toothed wheel on the DFR shaft, frees the DFR by rocking the rotor. When a blockage occurs and the rotor speed falls below 100 tr/min, the threshing and feeding functions of the combine harvester disengage automatically. The operator simply has to stop the combine harvester and activate the reversing procedure on the IntelliView display. The feeder conveyor reverses to empty the conveyor chain along its entire length, and the hydraulic cylinder and ratchet system reverse the DFR rotor.

Once the blockage has been cleared and the hydraulic circuit no longer meets any resistance, the reversing procedure is complete. The feeder conveyor reverses again to empty the conveyor chain along its entire length. The operator can then re-engage the rotors and the conveyor resumes operation. Clearing a blockage takes only about ten minutes.