Nothing really preventing the machine from operating in those conditions usually, but putting something in like an override switch that lets you drive without the arm rest down or without a driver in the seat would probably be considered “cycle beating” or something along those lines.
The performance levels / categories are really more about making sure your arm rest switch is redundant so you can detect a failure of the switch or a short circuit on any of the input pins, for example.
If I don’t have public documentation and a tool I can use to exercise the test channels 30 years later on the transmission and park interlocks, it’s not safe
I agree with you that open source is the way to go in general.
Well, the test channels are more an architecture thing, not like “click this button to test”. Category 2 is constantly monitoring itself: Command 1200mA but only getting 600mA? Throw a fault. Is there voltage at the pin when the output is off? Throw a fault. Etc.
Oof, that’s one of my personal bugbears with the agri machinery industry right there.
They are so litigious about “reverse engineering” (read: any automation without using one of their “consultants”) that they might try to sue you for scrutinising their user manual too carefully. I know someone who was threatened with legal action for publishing excerpts of machinery user manuals online.
It’s a nasty business, because they know farmers are a captive market with little technical knowledge. And of course, they are quite hostile to those who might have the technical resources to circumvent them.
I think you see now why it’s a better investment for me to build than buy something from a vendor that might sue me for publicly acknowledging what everyone else is doing. (For example, I had no idea the gleaner R62 I operated for years had a switch to turn off the header when the driver got out of the seat, and I’m pretty sure it had been bypassed for several years before we ever saw it.)
At some point vendors with this idea that they can sell a machine with firmware locks to highly sophisticated buyers are going to find the buyers have invested in other alternatives, and all they will be left with is lease and rental markets.
I look forward to the farmland auctions from the guys who rented and leased machinery for too long.
If you can’t get a local translation of what those fault codes mean and a schematic to diagnose which wires the rats chewed on this year, it’s not safe
When the fault code reads “Pin 13 output high side short to battery” in plain English, it’s pretty easy to diagnose. Come on man we’re not amateurs…
By the way, it is still safer than pure hydraulics. You can only achieve performance level C with a purely hydraulic system, and the MTTFd values are much worse on hydraulic / mechanical systems than on the electronics.
If your only experience is informed only by a shit product from 15 years ago that can only blink morse code at you when something’s wrong, then you might want to reevaluate the state of the art and your notions of safety.
If I apply the “Soviet Russia” trope, then the tractor that kills the man stood behind it when it jumps into reverse gear by accident, is better than the tractor that causes a whole town to starve when it doesn’t start because its safety interlocks are locked, or its connection to the cloud is down…
“But we are not in Soviet Russia or North Korea” you say
“Not Yet”, I say.
But maybe I am somewhat off topic from farm-proof connectors…
Farm safety is more about cost of financing. Find me a single documented instance of unintended movement that resulted in a death and we can have a debate about it. Otherwise I’d say all the engineering costs that result in million dollar machines are more likely to kill a farmer than the actual machine.
To the point about connectors, they should be something standard, easily available from multiple vendors with next-day shipping, and have the ability to be bypassed if necessary.
Wonderful @Alexander_Jones - thanks for sharing your work on the load and thermal testing, as well as the relevant precedent for the enclosure design. I hadn’t seen the Stormcore enclosure before but agree that approach could solve for IP65/66 readily with some panel mount connectors.
@tmagik - We are building an entirely open-source, ODrive controlled, micro-tractor we will sell you today for 10k, delivery late March. I see you have already made some wonderful progress on your own which is awesome too! Other options include extending our codebase, replicating our hardware on your own, and of course joining forces and contributing to our open source stack and helping bring more appropriate automation to the small farmer - it seems very possible we have already started solving some of each-other’s problems and there is synergistic potential here. Would love to setup a call. You can see some of our older work at this website www.farm-ng.com and find our contact information there as well. Kindly - Matthew
