hesston 550 round baler

Im looking at buying a 550 Hesston baler, its a nice looking roller but I seen a couple things im not 100% about. hope someone can help me out.. First off it has 2 sets of hydraulic outlets for the tractor, 1 for the end gate and one for the tie arm for twine.. now the guy don't have a bale monitor for it and it has a plug n on the passanger side of the roller that looks like there should be a box or something there.. my question is. what does the monitor do on these rollers becides tell u the bale is full? does the monitor make it a auto tie deal or what.. I was thinking mabe I could make one if all it does is tell u the bale is full.. does anyone have a 550 and could send me photo of the monitor nd what it shoouild have on the left side of the baler were twine goes. thanks a ton

I use a Hesston 540 baler which is similar to a 550 but on mine the twine arm is controlled by an electric switch and not hydraulic. On mine the monitor sounds when the bale is ready to tie and has the switch for the twine arm. I believe that on the 550 you would have a similar setup and that you need to advance the twine arm manually with your hydraulic valve.

If the baler has a bale size indicator on the left side, as you look at it, it can be used without a monitor but you will need to pay attention to the sight gauge as you bale.

Hi There are several versions of those balers, I got an early one here Badged as an 8440 case IH with narrow(4" or so belts) It has 9 belts It's a pile of junk to use but it looks nice, it only has a buzzer and no monitor.

I wouldn't give it to you to bale with if it was the last baler on the planet and you were desperate. The later model has 6 wider belt and is supposed to be better from what I'm told

after a few years we got a custom guy in to do our 1500 straw bales. The early narrow belt ones need to be in the mood to bale straw if it's dry they won't start the bale, I'd hope they bale hay better, we just did straw here.

The manual tie is just work having to move the string across. Dad used to count in his head while moving the arm, and having to stop the pto to spit the bale out is not fun in heavy crops to if your getting bales every few 100 ft . unless you got a light hyd or electric switch pto disengagement lever on the tractor.
We baled with a Belarus with heavy mechanical lever It used to give your right arm a good work out. If you are doing 50 bales a year you might live with it.

2 years ago we went back to our own baling the custom guy had a 664 NH with auto tie, I borrowed that, then bought a NH 688. I would of gone mad messing with that case 8440. Thats why dad went to custom the truth be known.
Find out exactly which model it is and google search it our model comes up for sale and problems. There aren't to many good words about it in quick searches and it's built pretty light . I'm sure if Dad had the search options we have now he would of never bought it, reading the comments.
Regards Robert