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Fire Suppression For Cotton Harvesters
As a custom harvester and third-generation cotton producer, Jon Pigg knows how fire-prone cotton stripper balers can be. When he bought a Deere CS690 cotton stripper round-bale harvester in 2015, he set out to protect it.
“Anytime you harvest cotton, the dust is like dealing with gasoline,” says Pigg. “It’s very
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Fire Suppression For Cotton Harvesters
As a custom harvester and third-generation cotton producer, Jon Pigg knows how fire-prone cotton stripper balers can be. When he bought a Deere CS690 cotton stripper round-bale harvester in 2015, he set out to protect it.
“Anytime you harvest cotton, the dust is like dealing with gasoline,” says Pigg. “It’s very dry, like grain dust, and very combustible.”
Combined with high heat and dry air, it’s no wonder fires account for most catastrophic cotton equipment failures. They can lead to higher insurance costs or canceled policies.
His Stripper Saver is designed to provide total coverage. It carries 200 gal. of Class A fire-suppressing foam, enough to cover the accumulator, baler, engine and transmission. In addition, a 50-ft. hose provides manual access to hard-to-reach areas.
Pigg notes that competitive systems often provide action that’s too little, too late, or produce false alarms. Standard heat sensors can miss rapidly rising temperatures, while smoke and gas detectors can trigger too late after combustion. Machinery heat, exhaust or static can all trigger false alarms.
The Stripper Saver uses AgTronics Thermal Vision, a combination of infrared imaging and uncooled bolometer sensors with no moving parts and minimal maintenance. An AI fire-discrimination algorithm filters out non-hazardous heat. Radiometric imaging maps temperatures pixel by pixel. It uses a USB or Ethernet interface and integrates autonomously with the fire suppression system.
The Thermal Vision system is enclosed in an industrial-grade stainless-steel housing with shielded industrial cabling. It’s dust and vibration-resistant and includes mechanical mounting brackets.
“As a farmer, I’m always looking for a better solution,” says Pigg. “One of the additional features of Stripper Saver is that it can be recharged in the field for a fraction of the cost of other systems.”
Since developing the Stripper Saver for his own use, his company, AgTronics, has marketed it throughout the Cotton Belt, Mexico and Australia. Stripper Saver with Thermal Vision is priced at $20,500. Thermal Vision, by itself, is priced at $4,000 for retrofitting earlier versions of Stripper Saver.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, AgTronics, P.O. Box 514, Quitaque, Texas 79255 (ph 806-759-0649; orders@agtronics.net; www.agtronics.net).
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