High labour and machinery costs are agricultural contractors’ biggest challenges at present. This, combined with tight margins, means that contractors today more than ever need to run their businesses as efficiently as possible. A key aspect to this is the equipment they operate on a daily basis.
This is something the family behind Byrne Agri and Plant know all too well. Based near Gowran in Co Kilkenny, the Byrnes are less than 15 minutes from HiSpec Engineering. They had been keeping their eyes peeled on the HiSpec Kompactor trailer for several years. After an extended demo in 2023, the family was very impressed with what it saw, and made the jump to a K40 for last year’s silage season. We caught up with Andrew to find out how the trailer performed after its first season.
Why a Kompactor?
“Traditionally, we have always ran Dooley trailers, and have been very happy with them. Anyone who knows Dooley equipment, knows that it’s built to last. Unfortunately, Dooley is no longer in business, so we looked to the marketplace to see what else was available. We had been keeping an eye on the HiSpec Kompactors for a few years. We are running some 25ft tri-axle trailers, which are probably as big as we can go. Long trailers fully tipped are high, which can be dangerous,” says Andrew.
“We liked the fact that the Kompactors are no longer in length, but can bring a much larger load than a conventional trailer. We were on 12/14 mile draw last year, and we decided to weigh the loads just to see exactly the difference. The 25ft tri axle Dooleys were bringing 10t of grass, a friend’s forage wagon was bringing 10t of grass, and the 24ft K40 Kompactor was bringing 13t of grass.”
The design
Renowned as a multipurpose trailer, its compaction and off-loading mechanism makes the Kompactor capable of transporting and off-loading a wide range of materials. HiSpec claims the compaction feature means the payload can be increased by as much as 30%, which the Byrnes’ experience having proved this to be the case.
As the name suggests, the principle behind the Kompactor is to compress the material as its being loaded. The trailer is loaded from the middle to the rear of the body. A moving floor and headboard are manually controlled via a spool using two hydraulic cylinders. These compact the load against the rear tail door, leaving room for more forage to fit in. The moving headboard can be used to compact the load on the move as little or often as the operator chooses, but Andrew notes that in their experience it’s generally compacted when around half full and at the headlands when turning onto a new swath of grass. Once compacted, the headboard and floor retract to its original position.
In a similar fashion, the trailer is then unloaded by first opening the tail door and then engaging the rams which moves the floor and headboard to the rear, which simply pushes the load out the back of the trailer.
A large window is embedded into the headboard for operator vision. Andrew noted that unloading takes in the region of 40 seconds to a minute.
“The Kompactor is quicker at unloading than our Dooley tri-axles and it carries a larger load. What we find is it’s not near as dependant on the tractors oil flow either,” says Andrew.
“Our New Holland T7.210’s struggle to tip the tri-axle trailers, regardless of brand, because they have such a high oil requirement. I know a friend of mine who runs 600 series Claas fails to use them on the tri-axles, he has to use 800 series tractors, due to their requirement on oil. This isn’t the case with the Kompactor.”
“With the Kompactor, you’re in and out of the yard quick, and you can start moving away straight after it’s unloaded, with just the tail door to worry about.
“With the conventional trailer, you have to wait for the tipped body to descend. The Kompactor is also safer in around the yard, you’re not watching out for overhead wires, or worried about uneven ground. We also found that the Kompactor leaves a much neater load in the yard. Instead of tipping it from a height and dragging the load, it leaves the load very neat,” adds Andrew.
Kompactor history
John Kennedy, a contractor based in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, originally designed the unique Kompactor trailer. Hi-Spec Engineering in Co Carlow joined forces with the contractor to build the trailer as part of the Hi-Spec product line in 2015.
Today, the Kompactor is available in three sizes, the K36, 36m³ 22ft tandem axle unit, the K40, 40m³ 24ft tri axle unit and the K50, 50m³ 28ft tri axle unit. As standard, the Kompactor comes equipped with parabolic 127mm commercial running gear, 560/60-22.5 wheels, a swivel ring hitch, a hydraulically sprung drawbar, 420x180 brakes, air/hydraulic brakes, LED lights, strobes and reversing lights and the hydraulic tailboard.
The Kompactor is also available as a demountable machine, allowing the operator to share a tanker or trailer body to the same chassis.
