Live data from Hacker News

Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

wheelfront.com

391–400 of 814 posts

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The mandate is for rear visibility. Car manufacturers choose to implement it with the back-up camera. Beyond that, it's obviously safer to be able to see everything behind the vehicle. - My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen, but has physical buttons for all controls (A/C, audio system). There's no reason cars can't have both.

> The mandate is for rear visibility Specifically, 10 feet by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. I'm actually curious how this could be achieved with only mirrors. That's a pretty big swath for anything with a viewpoint where the driver is sitting. > My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen Early implementations just used a screen in the rearview mirror. No need for any kind of infotainment screen.

In rear view mirror display is mostly just on GM products.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich don't have money, they have assets, and those assets can't go anywhere. It doesn't matter if the rich buy or sell a farm in Canada, the farm is still in Canada.

> It doesn't matter if the rich buy or sell a farm in Canada, the farm is still in Canada. Have we learned nothing from what happened to the US's industrial economy. If you turn the farm into an obviously poor investment it'll go tits up because neither wall street nor main street is dumb enough to invest money into a losing proposition.

[dead]

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#393

Up until a year ago I was regularly using a Massy Fergusson 135 [0] (Perkins Diesel version), made sometime in the 1970s. It was wonderful! So amazing to drive and use. Clunky and heavy, but you really really felt like you were using a machine. In low gears, if you put you foot down on the accelerator the engine would roar, and your speed would barely change! And there was no fancy technology in it at all. If I was i…

Still rocking one over here. The thing had not been maintained for 20 years while still being used, ran several times with almost no oil in the engine, drank gasoil full of water.

And it still works.

Things were made different back then.

I looked up the manual, you got everything you need to repair it. Maintenance is extremely easy. Even have electric schema.

Now my BMW, I looked into the manual how to change a light. It said to go to the dealer lol.

Fuck the modern car / tractor / tools. I blame the people for that, we went from customer that demanded to be able to repair their stuff to people who are now mechanically illiterate. I'm not sure they would even know how to replace a tire on their Tesla :)

That's why manufacturer have all the latitude to do what they do. And that's why it didn't go very far with farmers.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#394
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by the looks of it... any front collision == instant death?

I know nothing about automobile design, but the Smart Fortwo [1] seemed to solve this problem just fine (IIRC they had a very good NCAP safety rating). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

> IIRC they had a very good NCAP safety rating

3 out of 5, which I think merely qualifies it as "average"

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with spanish politics, care to explain?

This person is annoyed because Spain is speaking out against Israeli warcrimes/genocide.

That's quite the leap. Not that it's relevant but I have no issue with european boycott or sanctions of Israel, though warcrimes accusations are pretty toothless. Almost no leaders past or present charged with war crimes were ever arrested.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#396

Wait? No electric tractors yet? Swappable batteries would be perfect.

Electric excavators are there, as they are low duty cycle, see sibling comments for details, but high load percent for long time is a killer for battery tech.

I could imagine tethered tractors with power line tensioned in the air, but the grid building cost will be quite high for intermittent usage. Only some land usages and plot shapes would work economically.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining that canada has expertise in tractor software. Let's rein our nationalist tendencies in to something that approaches common sense

Do you think we live in fucking igloos bud?

I'm not your buddy, guy!

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine! I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!" EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If yo…

Why was the clutch so heavy? Did it serve some purpose or was it just due to the limitations of the technology at the time? I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch…

To deliver very high torque, the clutch plates needs to be pressed very hard together to generate enough friction. This also means that it take a lot of force to pull them apart, if you use a simple lever, as older machines do.

Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#400
post #129

This is the way if we can ensure manufacturing of the parts. It won’t catch on but it would be awesome to have “base” tractors that are mechanical and predictable. Then you slap on whatever software on top that helps (automation, etc). But they need to be decoupled imo.

Could even nationalise the base tractor factory...

Whoops, I hope you are not a naturalized citizen of the US.
Post reply on HN