Submitted by jeremy.zerr on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 05:43.
The goal of this project is to create an automated method to flip bales as they come off of a rectangular hay baler so that they can be scooped up in a specialized fork to create an optimized bale stack consisting of 4 bales vertical on the bottom with 3 bales lengthwise on top. The bale control unit will replace manual laborers hired for hay season whose job was to flip the bales as they came off of the bale sled. I created a bale control unit to be able to set the state of a solenoid based on the bale count detected by a switch depressed as the bales across over the bale sled. The solenoid operates a hydraulic rod that operates a platform that controls how the bales fall off the platform.
