by B-AutomationBonOS™ · DRYER
BonOS DRYER — the tonne you dry twice is the tonne you pay for twice
Less energy. Less risk.
DRYER monitors and controls the drying process against outlet moisture rather than against habit. It supervises cool-down, watches the parameters that precede a dryer fire, and records every batch so that next season's settings come from data instead of argument.
How it works
Automatic drying optimisation
Fire risk supervision
Temperature and airflow patterns that precede a dryer fire are watched continuously — including the ones an experienced operator would smell if they happened to be standing there.
Over-drying control
Drying to target moisture instead of past it. Every percentage point below target is water you paid gas to remove and weight you no longer sell.
Cool-down supervision
Incomplete re-cooling is the reason grain sweats in store after a good drying run. DRYER holds the cool-down before it releases the batch.
Batch records
Inlet moisture, outlet moisture, temperatures, throughput and energy per batch — so cost per tonne stops being a guess.
One screen, whole process
Burner, fans, discharge and grain temperature in one view, with the trend visible next to the current value.
An engineer can look with you
With CARE, a specialist can see the same live process you are looking at during the night shift.
What you get
- Continuous monitoring of drying temperatures, airflow, throughput and grain temperature, with trends alongside live values.
- Outlet moisture control — automatic or advisory — so batches finish at target rather than well below it.
- Cool-down supervision at the end of the batch and at shutdown, with the batch held until re-cooling is complete.
- Fire-risk supervision: monitoring of the parameter combinations that precede ignition, with escalating alarms.
- Per-batch records of inlet and outlet moisture, temperatures, running time and throughput.
- Interlocking with the conveying routes through CORE, so a dryer is never fed into a stopped chain.
Why it pays
Over-drying is the most widespread expensive habit in the region. For maize, roughly two hours of drying takes the crop to about 14.5% moisture, depending on variety and season; the next half hour brings it to 13.5–14%. After that the water release curve flattens, and each further hour removes only about one percentage point — at full gas consumption. The energy is spent, the throughput is halved, and the weight you sell is lower. Every hour of unnecessary drying is paid for three times.
The other end of the scale is the dryer fire. A grain facility's most feared failure is not the most likely one, but it is the one that ends a season: a burnt dryer can take the whole plant out of service in the middle of harvest. Most fires start from a build-up that overheats after a stoppage. A false emptying decision is still a much smaller loss than a burnt dryer — and drying can resume within three or four hours. DRYER is built around that arithmetic: it flags the conditions early and makes the cautious decision the cheap one.
The third return is the record. Once every batch carries its inlet moisture, outlet moisture, temperatures and running time, cost per tonne becomes a number you can compare between settings, between crops and between seasons. That is where the next season's savings are found.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work with our brand of dryer?
DRYER is designed to be manufacturer-independent. It reads existing dryer instrumentation over open industrial standards and adds what is missing. Which signals are available on your specific dryer is established during the system assessment.
Why is over-drying so expensive if the gas is already running?
Because below roughly 15% moisture the water release curve of maize is exponential and flattens out. Removing the last percentage point takes about an hour at full burner load, halves throughput, and reduces the mass you sell. You pay in gas, in capacity during the busiest weeks, and in weight.
Can it prevent a dryer fire?
It cannot make a fire impossible, and we will not claim that. What it does is watch the parameter combinations that precede ignition continuously — including through the night, when the operator who would notice the change in smell is not standing next to the outlet — and escalate early enough that emptying is still an option.
What is so important about cool-down?
If a batch is released warm, it keeps sweating in store: with no airflow the vapour condenses in place, wet nests form and the grain cakes. Most of the store problems that appear two weeks after a good drying season start as an incomplete cool-down.
Is this the successor of the DSS pages on the old website?
Yes. DSS — dryer supervision — is now BonOS DRYER, with the monitoring, the control and the fire-risk supervision in one module.
Related modules
CORECentral process controlCORE is the central process control layer of BonOS.
Read more about CORESTORAGEIntelligent grain monitoringSTORAGE watches the temperature of the grain itself, not the air outside.
Read more about STORAGECARESecure remote access and supportCARE is secure remote access to your own system, and the people behind it.
Read more about CARE
Less energy. Less risk.
DRYER monitors and controls the drying process against outlet moisture rather than against habit. It supervises cool-down, watches the parameters that precede a dryer fire, and records every batch so that next season's settings come from data instead of argument.