Bine 3060 Hop Harvester

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Fred_Armstrong

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Has anyone on the forum know of anyone using the Bine 3060 Harvester for this 2013 season? If so any reviews or feedback? Thanks.
 
Fred, as one of the creators/manufacturers of the Bine 3060, I would be more than happy to honestly answer any questions about the harvester here or privately. Or I can put you in touch with those who have used it.

I can tell you it isn't perfect but it is a heck of a lot better than handpicking.
 
I'd be interested to hear from anyone who as attempted to build their own harvester. This winter we'll be doing just that using specs from the UV harvester and some other ideas that are floating around.

I'd love to buy a 3060, just can't afford it with how small we are (1/2 acre).
 
Hey rudds, we are always looking for feedback. What specifically was lacking? Or what improvements do you think are necessary? (Also, what model year were you looking at? We've upgraded every year.)

Obviously its not going to out pick a Wolf nor is it suitable for more than about 3 acres but we were also shooting for something 1/6th the typical price and footprint of a Wolf.
 
From what I saw, it took five to six people to make that machine work ..and it still wasn't great..its a lawsuit waiting to happen befor somebody loses a finger or a hand...
IT isn't more than two lawn de -thatchers welded to a frame with a treadmill at a incline...surely not worth the 14grand the guy spent for it......

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Home Brew mobile app
 
IT isn't more than two lawn de -thatchers welded to a frame with a treadmill at a incline...

Ha, lawn de-thatcher...I never thought of it that way. Looking at some pictures, I see the connection. I've actually seen videos of other pickers that looked like a cross between a lawn mower deck and a thatcher.

Honestly, the picker was based on a brussel sprout picker and designs of hop pickers from the 1880's that were innovative but not practical to build at the time. The picking fingers come from Dauenhauer, it has a slip clutch to stop the picking fingers and (if the guards are in place) there shouldn't be anything exposed that could catch a finger or loose clothing. If you saw something otherwise please send me a PM and/or a picture. If there's some reason a user needs to remove the guards to get it to work, I would love to know for future re-designs.

I don't want to make this sound like a commercial but a fair amount of work went into that design and a lot of the early versions did come close to clipping off fingers. Heck, one model got a hold of my shirt and tried to give me an extra tight hug.

If anyone wants to understand the unit better, or any of the mechanical harvesters out there, ask away. I'm happy to share my experience or give you contacts to buy your own picking fingers to build a unit. (The fingers are much cheaper to purchase than to buy the material and bend them yourself.)
 
Pretty much any harvester has got to be better than picking by hand. The Bine 3060 is no exception.

Brian here at Great Lakes Hops recorded one in action that one of our customers purchased. We think the machine is decent for an acre or so. If you get too much larger than that the time and pricing don't seem to make sense to us.

I have to agree with Rudds67. On the documentation (last I checked) the machine is rated to run an acre with 2 people in 33 hours. We don't think that is very accurate. The 33 hours may be accurate, but we found that the machine physically requires at least 4 people to work properly. This has to do with the area that you feed the hops into being elevated. We saw that this alone added an additional person. There was always someone on the ground doing nothing but cutting the bine in smaller pieces (which seems to be required) and then handing them up to the person feeding. This particular grower used two people to feed the hops into the front of the machine. We also saw an additional requirement for a person who has to make sure the cones fall from the cage down to the conveyor. And this particular grower was using a person to pick the good discarded cones out of the waste bin.

Still beats picking by hand. But when you can pay just over twice the price and get a used Wolf machine that will harvest 10+ acres and will do each acre in just a couple hours; We recommend growers go that route if they are considering expanding or have more than an acre.

There are a handful of other harvesters coming to market now as well. The UVM harvester shows some promise, but will require some bugs to be worked out before it can be rolled out in larger numbers. There is also a Hop Harvester 1000 being designed in New York that is of a different design but the same scale as the Bine 3060.

At the end of the day, I think these new harvesters are great for the industry. We look forward to seeing them ramp up and get fined tuned for larger growers and faster harvests!
 
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Pretty much any harvester has got to be better than picking by hand.

Amen, that's why we started the project. We made it for ourselves...then a few more for friends...then for anyone who was asking.

Brian here at Great Lakes Hops recorded one in action that one of our customers purchased. We think the machine is decent for an acre or so. If you get too much larger than that the time and pricing don't seem to make sense to us.

Bingo. We don't say more than 3 acres and at that, you would probably want to use two pickers and a single sorter. The picker really follows the K.I.S.S. principal (Keep It Simple, Stupid). The hard part was the sorter. A lot of work went into assuring you only needed a single sorter instead of multiple dribble belts. This year's version has a stainless steel belt to get rid of belt tracking adjustments.

(On a side note, the shirtless dude in the video had to have a nasty rash from all the bines scraping against him. They also need to pitch it a bit higher for the hops they were running.)

I have to agree with Rudds67. On the documentation (last I checked) the machine is rated to run an acre with 2 people in 33 hours.

I don't recall what it used to say, but the material now says, "The Bine 3060 is designed to process up to 50 bines/hour (depending on variety and production method) with as few as 3 people. An average of 20-40 bines/hour is a reasonable rate." Some of the early results were incredible, because they were younger bines. It depends on the crew but we have found 3 can do it, 4 optimizes the process, 5 allows the highest possible picking rate with some rest for the crew and 6 means you've got someone standing around drinking beer and making everyone else work slower because the wish they were drinking a beer, too.
 
Amen, that's why we started the project. We made it for ourselves...then a few more for friends...then for anyone who was asking.



Bingo. We don't say more than 3 acres and at that, you would probably want to use two pickers and a single sorter. The picker really follows the K.I.S.S. principal (Keep It Simple, Stupid). The hard part was the sorter. A lot of work went into assuring you only needed a single sorter instead of multiple dribble belts. This year's version has a stainless steel belt to get rid of belt tracking adjustments.

(On a side note, the shirtless dude in the video had to have a nasty rash from all the bines scraping against him. They also need to pitch it a bit higher for the hops they were running.)



I don't recall what it used to say, but the material now says, "The Bine 3060 is designed to process up to 50 bines/hour (depending on variety and production method) with as few as 3 people. An average of 20-40 bines/hour is a reasonable rate." Some of the early results were incredible, because they were younger bines. It depends on the crew but we have found 3 can do it, 4 optimizes the process, 5 allows the highest possible picking rate with some rest for the crew and 6 means you've got someone standing around drinking beer and making everyone else work slower because the wish they were drinking a beer, too.

*Puts his mug down*

I also noticed that the shirtless guy wasn't operating under good agricultural or manufacturing practices, seeing as how his beer was sitting 1' away from him on the ladder. Thresher or not, involve alcohol in the mix with a machine like that near, and you're asking for trouble.

Now back to drinking!
 
*Puts his mug down*

I also noticed that the shirtless guy wasn't operating under good agricultural or manufacturing practices, seeing as how his beer was sitting 1' away from him on the ladder. Thresher or not, involve alcohol in the mix with a machine like that near, and you're asking for trouble.

Now back to drinking!

I may beg to differ. Spending multiple hours in the sun at that machine requires at least one beer. Haha! As Dan had mentioned, when all the guards are properly in place it seems surprisingly safe. The picking fingers were painless. You can stick your arm in the machine and it just stops.

That video was actually at a first test run of the Bine 3060 in our area. I myself would probably not recommend drinking beer while operating machinery all day long. However, in this case it was more of a trial run than anything else. This video was taken after house, no one was on the clock. No people, hops, or Bine 3060's were harmed in the making of this film... :)
 
Dan,
Having seen yours in video it is way safer/better than my hopzilla! Try to build a small scale one it is not easy especially when you have limited time to try it out with actual bines during "hand picking" season. I have had mine for three years and am always trying to make it better. Her is a pic and I believe in my album is a video.http://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/6/3/1/2/2/thumb1_3322-3044.jpg
 
From greatlakeshops
This video was taken after house, no one was on the clock. No people, hops, or Bine 3060's were harmed in the making of this film...

Love it and you forgot the universal safety warning--- "hey guys hold my beer and watch this! "
 
"hey guys hold my beer and watch this! "
Yeah, if I would have stopped doing whatever I was doing everytime I said that phrase, I would have a few less scars, the back of my hand would still have nerve endings, I wouldn't have an "interesting" dent in my skull and all my teeth would be real. But when you are 14 years old with a BMX bike sitting on top of an 8 foot high cow culvert and all your friends are there with some brews you got out of the local cement plant's vending machine...what else can you do but Evil Kenevil it?
 
Yeah, if I would have stopped doing whatever I was doing everytime I said that phrase, I would have a few less scars, the back of my hand would still have nerve endings, I wouldn't have an "interesting" dent in my skull and all my teeth would be real. But when you are 14 years old with a BMX bike sitting on top of an 8 foot high cow culvert and all your friends are there with some brews you got out of the local cement plant's vending machine...what else can you do but Evil Kenevil it?

So that's what happened to you! I thought all that plastic was male enhancement. I might use that phrase later today when I go on top of the hop poles in a few hours with my retired VFW buddies.
 
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