5 Reasons to Invest in the Digi-Star GT560 Advanced Grain Cart Scale
Advanced grain cart scales are definitely a great harvest asset from weighing loads in the field to eliminating guesswork. When we became a Topcon Agriculture dealer late 2017/early 2018, we were pretty excited to add the Digi-Star GT560 advanced grain cart scale to our offering. Although we could go on and on about why we are excited to bring you the Digi-Star GT560, we figured we would let users from AgTalk Forum share their thoughts instead.
Combine Calibration
The Digi-Star GT560 has a check combine button specifically for keeping your yield monitor calibrated.
We have yield monitors, grain cart scales, and a scale at the farm. The cart scale needs to be calibrated not nearly as often as the combine. I wouldn’t trust the combine unless you plan on calibrating it very often.
One of the best things with the Digi-Star scale is the digital display we have on the right side of the cart. Really handy for keeping the yield monitor calibrated.
Crop Insurance Documentation
The reports provided by the Digi-Star GT560 free software program qualify as hard records. They are easy to read and easy to use. Your harvest records can now be available anywhere and on any device through the harvest tracker online.
Got notified I needed to prove my soybean yields for 2014-2015-2016. Called my insurance lady and she said all I need is my assembly sheets where I sold my beans. She already had my combine and grain cart downloads. Pulled my assembly sheets, signed the paperwork, and it was done.
Since newer Digi-Star scale systems electronically track weights, our adjuster said they don’t even have to measure bins.
Tracking Locations
Keep tabs on what came off individual fields or what trucks moved it.
As far as paying attention to what you’re doing for destinations, we can edit the destinations after the load is logged. If you make a mistake on the destination, the total weight is still stored, so it’s not like you mess up the total quantity if you forget to change destinations. We can also easily keep track of which truck the loads went in if that’s something you want to track (if you hire someone to haul grain for example). Forgot to mention a very basic thing about the system. You can (optionally) set up all your fields, destinations, trucks beforehand and the reports will sort the loads accordingly. Very simple, very powerful.
Moisture
The Digi-Star GT 560 has an optional moisture testing module that will calculate dry bushels. This is installed in a location that experiences a continuous grain flow during unloading.
An indicator on the cart is a good idea for the combine operator. Any smartphone with Bluetooth can see the weight in the cart when it gets close enough (several hundred feet) to the cart. We can change the display units from pounds to bushels if we want. There’s a place to enter the moisture (which then computes to dry bushels in the reports), also a place to enter test weight. Lots of things available to utilize.
Load Accuracy
Every load gets logged regardless of who is running the cart with the auto start and stop function. The truck capacity function sounds an alarm when capacity is reached. This prevents over-loading and spills.
Just think about this if you are thinking basic display (no automated logging of any kind). I have very competent people operating my grain cart, but with all the things there are to distract us these days, it’s difficult to remember to manually log/hit a button twice every time you dump. It didn’t take me long after I bought a scale and basic display to realize I wanted some sort of automated display. If you’re not 100% on the logging, you’re going to be off a load now and then. I originally bought an auto logging kit for the Digi-Star scale head I had. That at least took away the worry that an operator (including me) would forget to log a load (you have two chances to forget on every load in the cart).
We have even more great Digi-Star scales available, check out the Digi-Star EZ 400 Display and the Digi-Star GT 400 Display. For more information, check out the Digi-Star site here or chat with our precision team!