Wallaces Farmer

OmniPOWER 3200 gets cosmetic changes, but many interior upgrades for 2022

Willie Vogt

March 10, 2022

4 Min Read
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MORE THAN SKIN DEEP: The new OmniPower 3200 has a host of upgrades from a new engine to revamped electronics to an enhanced hydraulic system.Courtesy of Raven

During Commodity Classic, Raven is launching the new OmniPower 3200 system — and it comes with far more than fresh paint. From a new engine to beefed-up hydraulics, this updated autonomous machine could easily be called Version 2.0.

Paul Welbig, director of sales for Slingshot and strategic accounts at Raven, says the team last year saw the chance to expand the market for the machine. “There was the opportunity to bring this into the U.S. market for a different type of clientele,” he says. “But what’s that going to take?”

The machine, first developed in Canada, was targeted at broad-acre operations. While its “cartridge” design offered options for users, the seeder for the system was not appropriate for the U.S., Welbig says. That narrowed the focus to two operations: a dry spreader and a sprayer.

Both of those attachments work in the machine’s narrow mode. “We’re simplifying the operation a bit, taking a bunch of complication out for the customer,” Welbig says.

The 3200 will work in both wide and narrow mode, but essentially the attachments offered are targeting a narrow-mode operation. That choice brings two attachment choices:

  • New Leader NL5000 G5 Crop Nutrient Application Spreader with precision features

  • Pattison Liquid System’s Connect Plus 120 Sprayer with a 120-foot boom

Under the hood

The new Raven-specific paint job moves the machine away from the stainless steel look, but the changes are far more than skin deep, Welbig says.

When Raven bought the company that pioneered development of what has become OmniPower, it put machines into the hands of users on the field. And in keeping in touch with users, the company learned how the machine could be improved.

Consider those early machines as Version 1.0 and the 3200 as Version 2.0 with its range of major upgrades.

Walking through the changes, Welbig starts with the completely upgraded tech stack, or the “brains of the machine,” which was moved to a platform more familiar to the market.

“In prior versions, there was a different set of electronics on the machine,” he says. “If it’s going to come to the U.S., we knew it needed to have Viper 4 brains on it and Slingshot brains on it.”

The aim was to have an operating system familiar to users already putting commercial machines to work. This new all-Raven tech stack has the Viper brains and data sharing offered by Slingshot. “This will be familiar to customers,” he says.

The Viper 4 upgrade includes the improved Rate Control Module, which Welbig calls a big upgrade for the machine. “That’s rate control on steroids,” he says, adding that it allows the 3200 to run the Hawkeye II pulse width modulation system, the boom recirculation and the auto height control. And the Pattison sprayer unit has those high-end features, he says.

In-field work also showed some other opportunities for improvement. “The machine had trouble in wet conditions; it was bogging down,” Welbig says. The four-wheel hydraulic drive system, along with the machine’s overall hydraulics, got a redesign to be more efficient. The hydraulic system gives the machine 50% more power to the ground.

The revamped hydraulics are now powered by a new Cummins 200-hp engine, a solid upgrade from the 173-hp machine. “That first engine was also a Tier 4 engine, but we’ve moved to a new Tier 5 engine, which is more efficient,” he says.

This is one of the first uses of a Tier 5 engine in the United States. Tier 5 has a higher emission standard that is already enforced in Europe.

Comparing the Version 1.0 machine to the 3200 shows improvements to hydraulic, electrical and mounting systems — all designed for improved serviceability, reliability and safety. The frame has also been beefed up, based on in-field work showing stress points on the older machines.

But the form factor remains the same — a cab-less, autonomous, multipurpose machine for applying both liquid and dry products.

Moving ahead

Welbig notes that while the 3200 will be introduced in 2022, the legacy units will remain available. “We can’t walk away from that inventory,” he says. “After the season ends, we bring them in, go through a 50-point check and get them ready to go back out.”

The rent-lease model Raven uses for those legacy machines will be in place for the 3200.

In addition, Welbig shares the story of French Valley Cooperative, an early buyer of an OmniPower unit in the United States. The co-op had found that a modified combine trailer can help move the machine from field to field.

“We wanted a system that would work and not hurt the efficiency of the machine,” Welbig says. “They discovered a trailer they had, refurbished it and it worked.”

Raven now has a trailer supplier, and customers can spec the trailer as part of the rent-lease offering.

The OmniPower has been an attention-getter wherever it goes. The 3200 builds on that with a new look, as well as major upgrades under the hood. For more information, visit ravenprecision.com.

About the Author(s)

Willie Vogt

Willie Vogt has been covering agricultural technology for more than 40 years, with most of that time as editorial director for Farm Progress. He is passionate about helping farmers better understand how technology can help them succeed, when appropriately applied.

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