Service & maintenance
Your equipment is only valuable when it's working. Everything below exists to keep it that way.
Scheduled maintenance
Planned inspection of hydraulics, electrical controls, safety interlocks and wear components. Almost every expensive failure on this equipment gives warning first — a weeping seal, a slow cycle, a switch that needs to be pressed twice. Maintenance is how you catch those while they are cheap.
Repair & breakdown response
Diagnosis and repair when a machine stops. Hydraulic cylinders and pumps, valves and hoses, motors and starters, control faults, door and interlock issues, shear blades and wear plates, tying mechanisms and photo-eyes.
Parts supply
Wear and replacement parts for installed equipment, including consumables like baling wire. See the parts page.
Inspection & safety review
Verification that guards, interlocks and lockout provisions are intact and functioning, alongside operator practice review. Federal guidance on this equipment is published by OSHA.
Six early warnings worth a phone call.
If your operators mention any of these, the machine is telling you something before it fails.
Cycles are getting slower
Often the first sign of a hydraulic issue — fluid level, contamination, a tiring pump or an internal leak.
Bales are loose or inconsistent
Usually pressure, tying, or loading practice. All three are fixable; none improve on their own.
Fluid on the floor
A hose, seal or fitting. Small now, a full failure and a housekeeping problem later.
New noises
Knocking, whining or grinding is mechanical wear announcing itself.
Controls need coaxing
Buttons pressed twice, doors that need to be held, interlocks that intermittently fault. This is a safety issue, not an annoyance.
Operators have workarounds
The most reliable diagnostic in the building is the informal trick staff have invented to keep the machine running.
Tell us what the machine is doing.
The more detail here, the better prepared the technician arrives. A photo of the machine's data plate and of the problem itself is worth several paragraphs.
Nichols to confirm: where service requests should be delivered (email address, CRM or dispatch system), whether a dedicated service phone line should be published for down equipment, service hours and after-hours availability, whether Nichols services equipment it did not sell, response-time expectations by territory, and whether preventive maintenance agreements are offered. Until then this form is not connected to a mail service.
Equipment down right now?
Call the office directly. A phone call moves faster than a form.