The bale is the unit of work, not the stroke
Run the defaults. Twelve cubic feet of charge at 60 lb a cubic yard is 26.7 lb of material going in each time the ram comes down. A 450 lb bale therefore needs 16.88 charges, which is 17, because you cannot put in part of a charge. Seventeen strokes at 22 seconds is 374 seconds, plus 90 to tie and eject, so 464 seconds a bale — seven minutes and forty four seconds.
That is 7.76 bales an hour with the machine running, and at 75 percent running time 5.82 bales, which is 2,619 lb or 1.31 short tons an hour.
Now double the loose density to 120 lb a cubic yard and change nothing else. Each charge is 53.3 lb, the bale takes 9 charges instead of 17, the cycle drops to 288 seconds, and throughput goes to 2.11 tons an hour. The machine is identical. The cycle time is identical. The tons an hour went up 61 percent because of what was being fed into it.
Throughput moves in steps
Charges are whole. On the defaults the bale needs 16.88 and gets 17, so the last stroke is 88 percent used and almost nothing is wasted. Drop the loose density slightly and the requirement crosses 17, an eighteenth stroke appears on every bale, and 22 seconds is added to a 464 second cycle in one jump — nearly five percent of the throughput, gone at a boundary.
This is why shaving a second off the cycle time usually does nothing visible and why a change in the incoming material can move the shift output noticeably with no explanation on the machine side. The page prints the fractional figure next to the rounded one so you can see how close to a boundary you are sitting.
Wire against power
The default machine draws 18.2 kW while running — 40 hp at 55 percent average load and 90 percent efficiency — and at 1.31 tons an hour that is 13.9 kWh a ton, which at 14 cents is 1.95 a ton. Five ties at 85 cents is 4.25 a bale, and a 450 lb bale is 0.225 short tons, so wire costs 18.89 a ton.
Wire is 9.7 times the electricity. That ratio is the usual shape and it lands the wrong way round from where attention goes, because power arrives as a bill and wire arrives as a delivery. The two things that move the wire figure are the tie count, which belongs to whoever specified the bale, and the bale weight, since the same five ties spread over a heavier bale cost less per ton.
Does it keep up
Six thousand pounds a day at 2,619 lb an hour is 2.29 hours of a six hour window, which is comfortable. When it is not comfortable the page says how far behind per day, and the useful form of that is cubic yards rather than pounds: a shortfall of a thousand pounds a day at 60 lb a cubic yard is 16.7 cubic yards a day of loose material standing somewhere, and after a week it is 83.
The three ways out are more hours, a faster stroke and fewer strokes a bale. The first two cost money. The third is a question about the feed, which is often the cheapest thing in the building to change.
Questions people ask
How many tons an hour will a baler do?
It is not a property of the machine on its own. On the defaults the same baler does 1.31 short tons an hour on material at 60 lb a cubic yard and 2.11 on material at 120, because the bale takes 17 strokes in the first case and 9 in the second. A throughput figure quoted without the feed density attached to it is not a figure about anything.
How do I work out charges per bale?
Take the loose volume that goes in each time, convert it to a weight at your feed density, and divide the bale weight by it. Twelve cubic feet at 60 lb a cubic yard is 26.7 lb, and a 450 lb bale needs 16.88 of them, which rounds up to 17. The rounding matters: part of a charge is not a charge, and the whole number is what the cycle actually costs you.
Why did my output drop when nothing changed on the machine?
Most often because the feed got lighter and the bale crossed a whole number of strokes. Going from 16.88 charges to 17.1 adds a full stroke to every bale, which on the defaults is 22 seconds on a 464 second cycle. Nothing on the machine reports that, and the cycle time itself is unchanged. The fractional charge figure on the page is what tells you how close you are to the edge.
What does baling cost per ton in electricity?
On the defaults, 13.9 kWh a ton, which at 14 cents is 1.95. That is energy only for the main motor while it runs, and it excludes demand charges, which are billed on peak draw rather than hours. The number to be suspicious of is the average motor load percentage, since a baler is at plate rating only during the squeeze and a clamp meter across a full shift usually reads well under what is assumed.
Is wire really more expensive than power?
On the defaults it is nearly ten times more: 18.89 a ton in ties against 1.95 in electricity. The ratio depends on your tie count, tie price and bale weight, and the page works it out from those rather than asserting it. It is worth checking on your own numbers, because it decides which of the two is worth an hour of anyone’s attention.