With the gaining popularity of draper heads in the past few years and an increased interest in adding air on these heads AWS has expanded the range of kits available for these heads.

Draper platforms undoubtedly feed better than traditional auger flexes however they are still prone to knife shatter loss especially in shorter pulse crops like beans & lentils. AWS Air Reels are available for MacDon, HoneyBee & Midwest headers up to 50 feet.

Our approach to putting air on these heads was simple design a kit specifically to work on only these heads alone. As with all AWS Air Reels our goal is to enhance the performance of the existing head and not take away from its design function.

The key to an effective system on a draper is air placement and weight distribution. Reel position when combining with a draper tends to be farther forward compared to an auger head. Air placement is critical so by using longer nozzles in front we can have optimal air position relative to the knife and the belt. The result is a crop that moves off the knife quickly and rides up more in the center of the canvas instead of on the leading edge reducing header loss.

In regards to weight placement, weight is evenly balanced in front of the head but locating a fan on one side of the head will greatly deter the unique float characteristics of these heads. Our approach was something that had the benefits of a combine mount fan but the flexibility of a header mount fan. By mounting the fan on the adaptor plate it meant the weight was carried on the combine not on the head. This allows our customers to dial in the proper float settings on the head.

On heads with split reel manifolds use a center support with a flexible coupler that allows the air manifolds to work in unison with the reels.

Some header combine combinations can utilize our AWS combine mount fans.