Not all grain drying systems are the same. Depending on the type of product your business needs to dry and the way your farm is structured, you may opt for a different model of dryer.
If you are looking for a solution that allows you to store cereals optimally, preserving their high quality and preventing mould from damaging the harvest, you can rely on Mecmar dryers.
Mecmar has always designed and manufactured efficient, strong and durable grain drying systems. Regardless of the system model chosen – mobile or tower – Mecmar drying solutions can be operated in three different ways.
To find out in detail how Mecmar dryers work, the types of operation possible and the advantages of each, continue reading this article!
Choosing the most efficient drying plants for cereals for you
Depending on the size of the plant, the type of cereal and its destination, Mecmar can offer you different drying solutions, more or less structured, with different purchase, installation, use and maintenance costs. For this reason, two product lines have been developed at Mecmar: mobile dryers with discontinuous cycle and tower dryers with continuous cycle.
Mobile dryers are perfect for small and medium-sized farms. The strength of this specific type of grain drying plant is undoubtedly its transportability. Mecmar mobile dryers can in fact be installed and subsequently moved. Relying on the robustness of the machinery, the maintenance required is minimal and performance is excellent for drying up to 200 tonnes of product in 24 hours.
Mecmar’s mobile dryers are true small turnkey plants, as they include in a mobile machine all the elements necessary for loading, unloading, cleaning and drying the grain. Mobile dryers are compact in size, transportable, resalable and easy to use, even by a single operator.
Tower dryers are suitable for continuous grain drying. Designed to be installed in well-structured facilities – large companies or storage centres typically needing to dry 200 to 700 tons per hour – tower dryers are low-noise as the noise caused by the fan is muffled by the presence of the grain around it.
Moreover, thanks to the heat recovered from cooling the grain (before it leaves the machine), Mecmar tower dryers consume little fuel. However, this type of plant requires cereal loading, handling and cleaning systems that are specifically designed and sized according to the farm’s layout. Therefore, before installing them, they require a good knowledge of the user’s needs, as once they have been installed on the farm they will remain in that position for several years.
But what are the different types of operation of mobile grain dryers? Generally speaking, grain dryers can be operated electrically or, if your farm has problems with the continuity of the electricity supply, by tractor, making them more flexible to use. If you are looking for an alternative to these two classic modes of operation, fear not. Mecmar grain dryers can also be operated using a dual drive system.
Let’s now briefly look at the main features and advantages of the different drive types:
- PTO drive
- Electric drive
- Dual drive drive
#1 PTO drive
In the first case, the tractor provides the power to run the dryer components via the power take-off (PTO). Depending on the size of the dryer, the power supplied by the tractor varies, from a minimum of 25 hp up to 170 hp.
Specifically, how does a PTO dryer work? The grain dryer needs the tractor’s PTO to move all the mechanical parts (auger, fan, mixer). An electric generator mounted inside the dryer then supplies power to the control panel and electrical consumers.
The advantages of a PTO drive are mainly twofold: easy handling of the system and low configuration costs of the solution. The drive phase is therefore simple and straight forward.
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#2 Electric drive
Electric drive only activates the motors required at a particular stage of the drying process, thereby minimising energy consumption. Again, the electrical power required varies depending on the size of the dryer. But how exactly does an electrically driven dryer work?
An electric motor is mounted in the system for each function (augers, mixer and fans), and the dryer is then controlled from the electrical panel. In addition, the machine is prepared for the installation of a touch screen which, connected to the dryer’s sensors, makes it possible to transform the dryer into an even smarter system.
The advantages of operating an agricultural dryer using electricity can be summarised as follows:
- Availability of different levels of sensors and automation.
- Possibility of installing a remote control system with touch screen.
- Possibility of integrating handling equipment on the control panel.
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#3 Dual drive drive
Thanks to a dual drive system, your Mecmar dryer can be powered by a tractor (through the PTO) or, if a tractor is not available, by electricity. As with the PTO drive mode, the main fan and augers are operated by hand levers.
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What are the advantages of this drive mode? The most important are two:
- You can move your dryer conveniently and at any time.
- You can exploit the potential of an extremely flexible alternative, which allows you to use either electricity or the tractor’s PTO to operate your dryer, depending on your needs.
Are you still in doubt about which model of dryer and which type of drive to choose? Contact the Mecmar team: together we can choose the most suitable grain dryer for you!
