dryer master
Dryer Master Experiences: Anthony in Ohio
Anthony has 2 Dryer Master DM510 systems, the first of which he added in 2007. He runs them on his two Zimmerman dryers, drying about 1.5 million bushels/year of corn and soybeans. This year he will be adding the DM Mobile remote access functionality so that he can check on his dryers at any time from anywhere.
Why did you buy a Dryer Master in the first place?
We purchased DM because any of the factory controls we had tried just did not work. We spoke to a neighbor that was running a DM at the time and they were completely satisfied. The DM was money well spent and I would not run without.
How does the Dryer Master change the way that you dry, or help your drying operations from an operational perspective?
The DM allows me to be more available during harvest season. I do not have to babysit the dryers all day and night. I just have much more confidence in the DM sensors and don’t feel I have to check constantly.
How often do you calibrate the moisture sensors?
I try and calibrate every chance I get. It seems once the dryers have been running a while I have to calibrate less often. I try to check it every couple hours.
And what is your calibration procedure?
My sampling procedure is this, for the input sensor I take several samples from the leg that is feeding the dryer. I average the moistures and wait about 12 min and start the calibration on the DM.
For the output sensor I hit the green button and take small samples the entire time the light is flashing (30 seconds). I run that sample through the tester about 3 or 4 times and enter in the average moisture.
You run two dryers. How do you allocate product between the dryers?
Normally for the first half of harvest one dryer is drying corn and the other soybeans. When I have them both in corn If we are harvesting inconsistent moistures I try to keep one drying higher moisture and one in the lower. We then unload both dryers into the same bin to get some blending between both of them.
Have you found a financial difference in your drying performance using Dryer Master? In what way?
The DM system has saved us time and money. I have consistent moistures coming out of the bin, we are not over drying like we did with previous controls, and the system is user friendly.
Dryer Master Experiences: Myron in Illinois
Myron has worked with Dryer Masters systems for over 10 years. He currently uses two DM510s on two Zimmerman 4500 tower dryers, typically drying around 4 million bushels of corn a year. In the first photo you have the DM510’s sitting side by side, along with the printers that Myron makes good use of. The bottom picture shows a slightly unusual sensor placement (the conduit runs to the back of the moisture sensor).
How does the Dryer Master change the way that you dry, or help your drying operations from an operational perspective?
We can generate a printout tape to evaluate the functions over night or during the day. To monitor moisture ranges.
Did anything surprise you about how your Dryer Master worked when you first used it?
The ease of operation.
What drying tips (if any) would you like to pass on to other dryer owners about how to get the most out of their dryer and/or their Dryer Master?
During start up – give it plenty of time to learn and if possible they work the best if you don’t shut down, and run 24 – 7.
Have you f
ound a financial difference in your drying performance using Dryer Master?
Yes, more consistent for moisture blending.
Maintaining Dryer Efficiency: Part One
It may be a bit hard to believe, but we have actually seen cases where a dryer has lost up to 50 percent of its capacity! We don’t want to see this happen to anyone so in this post, and the next one, we will talk a little bit about maintaining dryer efficiency.
Let’s start with the basics. Maintaining maximum air flow is the key to efficient performance. Because drying grain involves hot air passing through the grain, anything that reduces this air flow impacts performance.
With screen dryers, a great deal of moisture is expelled from the top few feet of the dryer. Much of the easy-to-dry product such as fines, broken kernels, chaff (red dog or bees wings) loses the bulk of its moisture here. These particles then tend to get pushed through the screen to the outside where they build up as a wet mess and stick to and plug the screens—thereby reducing air flow.
Over time, this wet section will steadily move further and further down the dryer as the screens in the higher portion above it plug up. This process gradually reduces the effective capacity of the dryer, and when drying capacity is lost, drying efficiency is reduced.
One way to slow this process is to clean the product ahead of drying. This will reduce the broken, fines, and red dog (bees wings) which tend to plug the screens.
Celebrating 30 Years of Dryer Master
When we say Dryer Master is the “premiere online moisture measurement and moisture control technology,” we mean it. From the beginning, we at Dryer Master have steadily improved and enhanced our technology to keep it on the leading edge. We’re proud to say we’ve now been serving customers for three decades—that’s right, this year, we’re turning the big 3-0.
We’re not shy about our age—in fact, we’re more than happy to talk about where we’ve come from and how we’ve grown since 1983. We began by controlling moisture in the drying process for corn, a notoriously difficult process to control. By helping our customers dry more product closer to target, we were able to help them experience real savings in dollars and quality. With this success, we expanded the application of our moisture measurement and control technology to other processes including manufactured food and feeds. This proved to be an important step for our business, and our capabilities—and it paid off.
As our focus has grown over the years we have continued with a tradition of innovation. And as we have learned more about the drying process, and as technology has evolved, our systems have evolved as well. We now have control and monitoring systems that can be integrated into dryer control panels or plant-wide systems or accessed via the web.
We’re currently working on the next generation of Dryer Masters, and you can be assured that we will be building in all of the latest technology to provide the kind of access and quality of control that have made Dryer Master the trusted name in drying control for 30 years. It’s safe to say we have an incredible future ahead of us, and we thank you, our customers, for making our 30th birthday a memorable and exciting one.
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