AShyFig

Interesting. I just finished with a thorny hydraulics problem on a 9870 Combine. It turned out to be a faulty sensor. Part of my troubleshooting involved buying a new sensor, and swapping out each sensor in the system one by one with the new unit until I was sure they were all working correctly. No calibration needed. When i do need to calibrate a system i can do it all from the onboard computer.

What a systemic downgrade in capabilities.

I've always been a bit confused about the right to repair debate, especially as it concerns John Deere equipment. I don't own any "new" John Deere products, but I do have a few pieces circa ~2010. Perhaps my experience is out of date.

Here's how it's always worked for me:

1. A code comes up on the computer.

2. A. The problem is self evident. Or;

2. B. I search online and find the problem. Or;

2. C. I search online and find the diagnostics manual, which I use to find the problem. Then I have diagnostics manual pdf forever, and can use this in the future.

3. A. I search online and find the parts diagram. Or;

3. B. I search my dealers website and find the parts diagram.

4. I order the part.

5. I install the part.

Has something changed with newer equipment that prevents farmers from doing this?

This sounds really interesting! I'd love to see it when you're done.

I wasn't aware that my Nest thermostat was going to be End of Life'd, but I just finished replacing it with an older Honeywell/Zwave combo due to lack of features and general de-googleing. Would be great to do something with the hardware, which is really slick.

This is by design. Aside from the points raised by others on the reality of living next to the world's biggest superpower; our media landscape is fast becoming a monopoly. That monopoly is owned by Americans [1].

[1]. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Asset_Management

It's funny you mention PitViper, because they are by far the worst offender in my inbox. I've unsubscribed multiple times, I've marked as spam multiple times, yet somehow I still get the occasional marketing message in my Gmail inbox.

Oh wow! Not sure if it was this exact program, but I remember some similar sheep roaming my desktop when I was young. It had the ability to draw pictures in MS Paint, and would often do so when you were working on something...

Automated spotting is a bit of a bandaid, but might prove more useful as this situation drags on. I've thought about those raspberry pi flight trackers, but I don't think you can get the data I'm looking for from from Mode C Transponders, which is what I assume the small guys use. I haven't looked into it too deeply. The optics needed for a visual system are daunting, (the area I need to watch is large, and planes are small and fast!) but might be possible. A radar solution might be possible as well. Based on my understanding of the technology I don't think this is the right application for an LLM, but perhaps more traditional algorithm coupled with a modification of the right-of-way rules would do the trick.

The drones I fly for scouting are on various premade flight plans. DroneDeploy.com offers a good application for mapping fields from 300' high, and FlyLitchi.com works well for custom paths (flying to one spot in the field, dropping down low to take a high resolution picture of the crop, then zipping back up and repeating several times.) I can't see much benefit to full AI control of the aircraft. The current mode of operation has them on preset "rails" with room for adapting to obstacles using ultrasonic sensors. I'd like some visual adaption capabilities, perhaps something to do with lidar and SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping), but my drones don't have these sensors, and the last time I looked into this a DIY solution was out of my wheelhouse.

I've only seen water trials of spray drones, but my understanding is the lower the better, within reason. depending on the vortices the aircraft generates the spray booms need to be about 4-6' off the canopy top, so ~15' total flight height. You can find a little bit of an overview here: https://sprayers101.com/drone-sprayers-are-we-ready/

This future is a lot closer than most people think, but is hardly a solved problem.

-posted from my self driving tractor.

The future of drones, especially in dense areas may require some sort of technological solution like that, but for the time being out in the boonies here I would love for the rules to change so that the first 300' or so of airspace above my property is "claimed."

Enter at your own risk.

NathanBuilds on YouTube has a little robot which does the same thing with a large magnifying glass. A concept I am very eager to demo on an industrial scale.

Crush becomes a problem for us in Canola and Lentils during desiccation; which is a chemical application at the end of the season right before havest. As the name implies, desiccation takes a crop which might have variations in "greenness"/maturity and kills it all down to a consistent state for harvest.

At this point in the crops life, the canopy is quite filled out, and a large portion of it is already dry. By driving through the feild at this time you knock the seed from the pod onto the ground, where it is impossible to harvest. Thus it is better to do desiccation from the air.

They have the natural right of way. No matter who's paperwork isn't filled out, if a spray plane hits my drone I am at fault.

The advantage flying sprayers have over a tractor is loss. Driving a tractor through a field will crush a percentage of your crop, and a percentage of that crushed crop will never recover.

Depending on the field that percentage can be as high as 10. Depending on the crop, the value you gain by aerial application can be in the 10s of thousands of dollars.

Drones are going to be a large part of agriculture, but the problem isn't the technology. Imo the technology is already at a point where it's useful enough for me to invest in. If i wanted to today i could buy what i need for scouting and spraying a ~1000h farm from aliexpress.

The problem is the regulatory environment on two fronts. First ( in Canada) the pesticides I'd like to use are not registered for drone application, even if they are registered for application from helicopter or plane.

Second, I don't have priority airspace rights. Which means I have to have a person watching both the drone and surrounding airspace for crop dusters or personal low flying aircraft. Even if I file a flight plan weeks ahead of time and a NOTAM [notice to all airmen] i am required to ground my drone if an aircraft with a person is nearby. Even if they have failed to file NOTAMs, which in the case of my local spray dudes is 100% of the time. This makes completing a scouting or spraying job more labour intensive than using a tractor because I often require a spotter at the far end of a field.

Until the regulatory issues are sorted out, and drones can be operated with Beyond Visual Line of Sight rules, you won't see massa adoption of this tech.

My drone fleet is sitting and collecting dust at the moment, which is a shame because they do provide valuable information.

Thanks! Imgur worked on my desktop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39195506

For those who are curious, here is the office view of my own "Spaceship tractor cab." https://imgur.com/a/ebUlEVy

Devices:

Tractor - 1979 Versatile 875. Indestructible. Used for planting with a 40' air seeder.

Trimble 500 - This is now a redundant GPS receiver which provides a special NEMA string to the device below it. Will stay in operation until I can figure out how to reliably duplicate said string via the primary GPS.

PF3000 - Old reliable. This computer allows rudimentary tracking of loads to allow for seed and fertilizer rate experiments. Data is saved to a CF card for later transfer to SMS Basic or QGIS.

CF-D1 Tablet - This handy bright touchscreen handles the signal from the primary GPS and RTK towers. It communicates with various sensors and a DC motor to steer the machine. Runs AgOpenGPS, a incredible godsend of a project which allows these kind of autosteer retrofits on old tractors for dirt cheap.

Various camera screens to monitor the operations of an Air Seeder. You know what's cheaper and more reliable than airflow and runout sensors? Cameras. :) Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade these to IP cameras this spring, but for now they're all various brands of cheap wired "backup cameras."

Agtron sensor monitor (canbus I think?) - This is supposed to monitor shaft RPMS and other various functions for the Air Seeder. It kinda works, but most functions are broken.

AtomJet Aux Hydraulic system - Allows older tractors to handle newer more intensive implements.

AgopenGPS control board (V2.. I think) - Takes Wheel Angle sensor data, GPS data, and Motion sensor Data, stews it all up on an Arduino nano and feeds that to the steeringwheel motor.

Ardusimple GPS RTK2B - Primary GPS receiver and NEMA string generator.

Not pictured - A streamdeck MK2 set up to control AgOpenGPS functions. Of dubious usefulness. :)

Other future upgrades - Replacing the main hydraulic manifold block with electronic solenoids. This should allow AgOpenGPS to raise and lower the implement automatically, as well as control various functions of the air seeder. One more step on the road to total automation!

Is there anywhere I can anonymously upload an image to show off my own "spaceship tractor cab?" It's been awhile since I've tried, and it seems imgur no longer allows non-users to do this.

I did some more digging just now since this was bugging me so much. Behavior persisted after restarting firefox.

Under firefox settings/site permissions the microphone is "Blocked by Android"

So I decided to double check my android settings, and was greeted by some splash page explaining what the permissions settings page was for. (Perhaps this page appeared after a recent update?)

After clearing the page I see Firefox microphone permissions sitting in the "ask every time" catagory. Im 100% sure i did not get asked or give permission for microphone usage.

I go back to Firefox and YouTube no longer accesses my microphone when playing a video. The only variable I can think of was clearing that splash page. Mysterious. :)

I hate to use this thread as a general forum for complaints against YouTube, but I've come across some concerning behavior.

I've gotten fed up with the app, so this morning I decided to use Firefox mobile to play a video on YouTube.com

Whenever the video plays, my microphone turns on. The thing is I have my microphone permissions in Firefox turned off, with no exceptions. Has anyone else encountered this behaviour?