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The Claas team celebrate the 50,000th Lexion combine harvester rolling off the production line.
Since its launch in 1996, following a decade of development, Lexion combine harvesters from Claas have set the benchmark for high capacity cereal production.
Back then Claas, in the 400 series -- in particular the top of the range 480 – mounted its APS pre-separation system ahead of a 600mm diameter threshing drum and introduced the Roto-Plus forced separation system, which differed from a conventional straw walker layout in using rotors inside threshing grates; this led to the arrival of a new harvesting category called APS-Hybrid.
The roomy, quiet and comfortable Vista cabin had an on-board setting and monitoring system called Cebis, and the Laser Pilot, which made a breeze of steering at night or in dusty conditions.
The Lexion has been popular, hitting a 10,000 milestone in just six years; the Lexion 480 had 415hp on tap and could harvest 40 tonnes an hour all day long.
In 2003 came the 500 series with more harvesting capacity and refined technical systems, and by 2005 the 600 series had arrived, pushing output to 70 tonnes per hour.
Of course customers wanted more, so in 2010 the 700 series appeared, able to carry headers up to 12.3m wide, travel at 40km/h on the road where local regulations allowed and equipped with high end software to document and record the harvesting process.
The latest Lexion 780, launched in 2013, sets the benchmark for harvesting performance, its grain tank holding 13,500L. It sports the Cemos automatic driver assistance system, by which the driver sets defaults for engine load, grain losses and returns loading, then the machine calculates and adjusts for maximum output within the set parameters.
The latest machines can also be specified with 4D cleaning systems for working on hillsides, and an automatic crop flow system. These and the original concepts gained the machine the coveted Machine of The Year 2016 at the giant Agritechnica show.
For readers who revel in numbers, the Harsewinkel factory recently produced the 50,000th Lexion; it has 50,000 individual parts and carries 4km of electrical wiring and 215m of hydraulic hose.
Silage making is both a science and an art, but Claas says it offers onboard technology featured in its Claas Perfect Partners to help farmers make silage more efficiently and effectively.
Claas has recently celebrated the 250,000th CLAAS mower – a Disco 3200 FC – rolling off the production line in Bad Saulgau, south-west Germany.
Christchurch-headquartered Landpower and its Claas Harvest Centre dealerships has taken out the Global After Sales Excellence award in Germany, during the annual Claas after sales meeting at the end of January.
January to March is the heart of New Zealand’s ‘golden’ harvest, but also the time of the year when Landpower and Claas Harvest Centre welcomes two optimisation specialists from Germany to support Claas combine customers in the cab of their machine.
Creating perfect silage is both a science and an art, and it all begins with the right tools, according to machinery maker Claas.
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