Dust entering an engine’s air intake can quickly build up in filters, requiring operators to stop frequently to blow them out or clean them. Depending on how dry conditions are, that can mean servicing filters every day, every other day, or once a week, adding time spent on maintenance during field operations.
At Agri-Trade in Red Deer, Alta., Terry Wall of Thunderstruck Ag Equipment discussed the Redekop KAS Pre-Cleaner, a system designed to remove dust from incoming air before it reaches the filter. Mounted on top of the intake pipe, the pre-cleaner uses angled fan blades that spin with incoming airflow, pushing dust particles to the outside of the unit. Those particles are expelled through angled slots around the housing, while cleaner air continues into the intake system, says Wall.
The benefit, Wall says, is keeping fine dust out of the filter itself. “It takes the dust particles out of the air before it gets to your filter system… letting the clean air come back through into your intake system,” he says, noting that this reduces the need for frequent filter cleaning and helps filters last longer.
In side-by-side field testing using two Case Quadtracs operating on the same farm, Wall says Thunderstruck weighed the air filters daily over seven days to compare dust accumulation. Over that period, the tractor without the KAS Pre-Cleaner gained about four pounds of dust in the filter, while the machine equipped with the pre-cleaner accumulated “just under a pound,” highlighting the difference in how much material reached the filter.
