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Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
441–450 of 814 posts
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#442I don't think the issue is "smarts" in our cars/tractors/light-switches/etc but the lock-in and "authorized repair" bullshit. On the topic of Smart Home stuff (which is the only topic I'm even slightly qualified to talk about) I've heard about people wanting "dumb houses" after initially people wanting "smart houses". It's my opinion that this desire is driven mainly due to bad experiences and doing smart homes the "…
Earlier thread on the same tractors but article with less focus on John Deere BS. [1]
The problem for farmers isn't actually just the idea of one company that's decided to make $$$$ on servicing even for unlocking a repair that's even been carried out for by a third party - it's just many newer tractors have not been suitably robust or farmers are finding the specialised parts come at premium prices or those in countries that are a bit remote to tractor production, international delivery times are not exactly thrilling. It's not just electrics, but electronics is the more notable short coming.
The biggest issue in an agricultural setting is robustness - wiring is one element that is prone to being pulled out transiting a rough paddock or pasture or chewed via mice and rats. After wiring is the quality of switches available for hostile environments - in my locale tractor owners had come to accept every so often they'd be replacing a switch every so often.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem: Once you have a microcontroller running a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel and spark, it's very tempting to make it run a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel, spark, and time since license renewal - and there's no outward difference between the two microcontrollers until one of them stops working. This is where regulations can help: if a manufacturer is afraid of a zillion dollar fine, they won'…
While I agree in principle, we went two or more decades with cars powered by microcontrollers, and I don't recall any manufacturers trying to charge for licenses until more recently. There is something fundamentally different about the economy we are now in, I suspect.
I think the difference is that in the past, companies expected to be punished for obviously evil behavior, but now, they know they can go very far. Toyota got punished for stuck accelerators. Would they get punished for the same thing today? Tesla had stuck accelerators and we all forgot about it.
They're still pushing the boundary today. The Ring Superbowl ad where they announced they're watching you (but they said "your dog") 24/7 apparently got a lot of people to quit Ring, and you know they're crunching the numbers to see if the retention rate is worth the extra surveillance collection.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Electronically controlled unit injectors are expensive--like 10x the price of mechanical ones. They're super cool, they can produce like 10 separate metered injection events per cycle. This is great for efficiency, noise, emissions, etc. But I can rebuild mechanical injectors with a bottle jack pop tester I made from $100 worth of parts and a bench vise. There's no wiring harness, no computer.. If the inject…
Surely there’s room for a middle ground. There are plenty of 1990s-era engines that were excellent designs, had no meaningful connectivity to anything except their own ECUs, and could be produced new for not very much money. Some of them were quite modular, too — I know someone who took the drivetrain out of a salvaged Honda Civic and built an entire car (with no resemblance whatsoever to a Civc) around it. If a trac…
It's not the craziest idea. A tractor is basically just a big hydraulic pump driving a bunch of linear and rotary actuators (commonly called "motors" and "cylinders"). Especially if it's got a hydrostatic transmission. If you design it in such a way that it's relatively easy to adapt different clutches and bell housings, maybe with a little driveshaft and u-joint between the clutch and the pump, you could theoretically accomplish something like this.
However one major sticking point is that (often.. maybe always?) the engine block casting is actually a structural component of the tractor "frame". Unlike e.g. a truck that has its driveline mounted between frame rails, a tractor's "frame" is its driveline . So this might add quite a bit of complexity and cost.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#445Up 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…
I have the original 1940's Minneapolis Moline R and my wife has the original Farmall H and we both currently live in the city (but grew up farming or close to it) so we're not city kids, but somewhere stuck in between. I deeply get the feeling of using a non-tech machine, and how simple it is but intuitive to use. We used a pain mixing stick to check the gas level in our tractors on the farm, I don't think the gas gauges ever worked. You'd have to whack the starter with a wrench since they didn't ever work half the time. They worked over 60 years before they got their first oil change (my grandpa didn't believe in changing them - but my dad and I think it's just because you'll never get the canister filter to seal ever again if you did change it)
Great memories.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#446I think this is a reaction to the incredibly locked down ecosystem that most of these mfgs are pushing. However, the tech exists for a reason and is not inherently bad, the issue is the lock-in, the lack of choice and interoperability. IMO, there is plenty of space for an OEM who can play nice with others, offer an open (and vibrant ecosystem), and keep users coming back by choice, not by lock-in.
>> However, the tech exists for a reason and is not inherently bad, the issue is the lock-in, the lack of choice and interoperability.
The marketing excuse for the tech might be features or efficiency, but the reason for the tech is lock-in and minimising product lifetime.
The days when manufacturers had friendly, cooperative relationships with their customers are long gone :( Can we bring them back? I hope so, but am not hopeful.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But there's more to agtech than driving a tractor around, a lot of what these big integrated systems do (at the high end) is very data driven -- determining where and how to plant, irrigate, fertilize, etc. How difficult is this to implement outside of big ag-tech? I feel that a community of experienced farmers and programmers (or programmer-farmers) could tackle this.
It really depends. The bigger agcorps have tones of integration. The machine, from tractor to combine and everything in between often feeds data together to produce a holistic understanding. Things like - How much fuel was used - Where your tractors and sprayers drove - Soil samples and content - How and where every bit of chemical and fertilizer was applied - What weather hit your field - How much and and the moistu…
> The bigger agcorps have tones of integration.
Yes, but how useful is the integration?
The sprayers/spreaders can be connected cheap computer to achieve most of what you describe.
I used to do literally that but in aircraft. Must be easier and cheaper in tractors
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#448I want this for cars but to keep the modern powertrain. So an EV without the tracking/touch screens, etc etc. Or an internal combustion engine car that is just simple and efficient (and again, no tracking). I'll take the low-tech but nice features like heated seats and power windows still thank you.
So slate.auto?
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#449I want this for cars but to keep the modern powertrain. So an EV without the tracking/touch screens, etc etc. Or an internal combustion engine car that is just simple and efficient (and again, no tracking). I'll take the low-tech but nice features like heated seats and power windows still thank you.
People who says this never even consider Nissan Leaf. "Because the charging..." or whatever.
So consumers DO want all-touchscreen disposable cars like Tesla - it's similar to how disposable phones had replaced phones with removable batteries(even among IP rated phones). Wallets vote strongly against consumers.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.telotrucks.com/ is pretty much that Cheap, fast enough, practical, goofey looking.
by the looks of it... any front collision == instant death?
They very much designed for collisions. They have an engineer discussing those aspects this video.