MachineryLink

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (DTN) -- I received an email from a reader about two weeks ago which said in part, "As I was driving by a local motel I caught a glimpse of something and turned around to check it out. It was on a lowboy trailer and it was a combine that articulated in the middle and had a large grain cart built in behind the chopper ... . The combine was orange and said, 'Tribine,' on it, but the seat in the cab said, 'Gleaner,' on it."

Later in the email, the author said he had tried to do some research into the machine and came up with the name, "Ben Dillon," and the town of Logansport, Ind. He asked my help in finding more information.

On reading this, my first reaction was: What is this guy doing scoping out motel parking lots, then doubling back to peer into vehicles? On reflection, I thought the author of the email would make a great reporter.

Turns out the author was, indeed, onto an interesting story. For while I hadn't heard of the Tribine or Ben Dillon before reading that email, this week I met both of them at the AGCONNECT Expo & Summit in Kansas City. And the author was right on almost all counts.

The Tribune is a combination grain cart and combine harvester; it is articulated and its harvesting part is a Gleaner.

Here's the story as told to me by Ben Dillon, who owns Tribine Industries. Dillon farms corn and soybeans near Logansport, Ind. (Right there, too, email author.) A few years ago, he got the crazy idea -- as farmers sometimes do -- that he could improve on existing technologies. In this case, he wanted to create a single harvesting machine that would do the work of a pair of machines. Through three earlier prototypes, he worked out enough bugs to think the Tribine was, he told me, "robust enough to bring to market."

AGCONNECT is the first public showing of the Tribine. What the email author had seen probably was the Tribine on its way home to Indiana from the ACGO harvester factory in Hesston, Kan.

The front half of the Tribine is a Gleaner S77, a class 7 machine with a 375-hp engine. The back half is a 1,000 bu capacity grain cart that can unload at 500 bu per minute. The two halves each have their own transmission, connected by hydrostatic loops cross-ported with small hoses. That allows the two axles to automatically load-share. When oil pressure goes up to the front axle, oil flows through a hose to the rear axle. "If the pressures are equalized, they automatically load-share. It's really a simple system but works quite well," Dillon said.

The set up allows the vehicle to be full time 4WD while also having compound steering articulation plus a pivoting rear axle. That means the driver can crab steer the grain cart right next to a waiting semi.

The Tribine reduces labor and machinery costs, Dillon said, because it eliminates the need for a grain cart and tractor. It also eliminates two sets of compaction-causing tire tracks in the field.

What I saw at AGCONNECT was a prototype. "We are looking for a manufacturing partner," Dillon said. "We are a small family-owned company and couldn't build 1,000 of these each year."

I couldn't end this better than the way that email author did: "I'm not interested in buying one [a Tribine] but am very interested in seeing ... how it works. It was a very interesting piece of machinery and hats off to the man!!"

Look for more on the Tribine in a future issue of DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

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