SOME of the best inventions used on farms come from farmers.
Hopetoun grain grower Grant Wilson has developed a relatively simple system to automatically raise field bins on to their wheels.
Normally, growers have to manually lever the wheel assemblies to lift the field bin off the ground - a process that can cause accidents and injury if the lever slips out of their hands and rebounds.
Grant has fitted air bags on each of the wheel assemblies on his field bins, linked to an air-receival tank fitted above the auger drive shaft at the front of the field bin.
The closed-loop system tank is pressured to 450kPa (65psi).
When the field bin is empty, the pressure in the air bags is enough to push the wheels down, lifting the field bin off its base.
As soon as half a tonne of grain is dumped into the field bin from the harvester, the weight of the grain lowers the airbags, retracting the wheels and settling the bin firmly on the ground.
Grant's father, Lindsay, said the air bags helped mobility of field bins in the busy harvest period but also made them safer to handle.
"Moving the field bins is generally left to the young and inexperienced guys or the older blokes," he said. "This makes it much safer and easier to use."
Lindsay said the bin did not have to be unhooked from the tractor to be moved about.
Lindsay said the air bags meant smoother travelling at higher speeds on open roads, and also acted like a vehicle suspension system.
The Wilsons have named the air bag system the 'Camel' because the earlier prototypes on field bins mimicked camels getting to their feet. And the camel is getting around.
Aside from converting all their own field bins to air bags, Grant has fitted the system to neighbours' bins.
