Portable Grain Dryer Slashes Costs

Portable Grain Dryer Slashes Costs GRAIN DRYERS Mike Duns says the portable Cyclone Twin grain dryers can dry grain at a fraction of the cost of conventional dryers “A Cyclone Twin can pull about one percent of moisture a day from a 5 000 to 10 000-bushel bin for about $100 worth of diesel fuel ” Duns says Unlike conventional dryers that run on LP or natural gas a Cyclone Twin is powered by two 390 000 btu indirect-fired diesel fuel burners Fresh heated air is blown into the grain through a 12-in rigid spiral pipe The burners cycle on and off to prevent grain from overdrying on the bottom of the bin Duns says in a typical drying scenario the burners would run 4 to 6 hrs until they’re turned off by grain temperature sensors When the burners are off air still moves into the grain pushing the layer of heat higher into the wetter grain Heated air temperature is regulated by changing nozzles which control the amount of fuel entering the burners Smaller nozzles are used when ambient air is warmer and larger nozzles for colder air The company is working on software to automate the system with applied heat and bin sensors Duns had two of the Cyclone Twins drying wheat in a 60 000-bu Sasketchewan wheat bin reducing moisture content from 17 percent to 13 5 percent while using less than 5 cents per bushel in diesel fuel The dual burner Cyclone Twin sells for $22 900 Canadian and a smaller single burner Tornado model retails for $7 900 Contact: FARM SHOW Followup CanDri Industries RR5 Box 224 Site 503 Saskatoon Sask S7K 3J8 Canada ph 306 230-8641; www candri ca

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