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Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

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

#601

Post by jimnotgym »

Toutouxc wrote: post #587
azzentys wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's untrue. I know a farmer, who buys a John Deere combine before harvest. It stays unused until his harvests are done, and returns it by end of harvest season incurring $30k on this entire transaction. Why does he do that? Because he has two weeks to finish up harvesting or start incurring losses on his harvest. Farmer does care about saving costs/losses AND getting the job done in time.

That's interesting, why don't farmers run some sort of common reserve pools of vehicles, as a form of insurance?

The trouble is they all need them at the same time. In the UK you will see farmers in a break in the weather, all out testing the moisture in the wheat. As soon as it is right it is all hands to get it in on every farm before it rains again!

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

#602

Post by jimnotgym »

simplyluke wrote: post #529
bryanlarsen wrote: post #82

Is part of the appeal due to the fact that being remanufactured engines they don't need modern emissions control, aka Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF)? Farmers hate DEF.

That's most of it. It gets lost in the right to repair conversation, I think because many of the same individuals who care about that also tend to be very pro-environmental-regulation, but one has to take a step back and acknowledge the fact that the EPA made it illegal to build this tractor new instead of with a rebuilt truck engine from the 90s. You literally cannot build a legal diesel tractor in the US that doesn…

The decision to lock down the ecu is quite another thing.

It could easily have been done with a basic ecu that was readable by a $20 cable to your laptop.

That being said, the DPF is the destroyer of modern engine reliability.

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

#603

Post by jimnotgym »

happyopossum wrote: post #509
vl wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These tractors are not new, they are rebuilt.

No, only the engines are remanufactured - the tractors are new.

And a remanufactured engine can easily be better than it was when it left the original factory.

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

#604

Post by bookofjoe »

organsnyder wrote: post #331
WarmWash wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magic of an engine is less in how it operates, and more in how it was built. At least around the time they started showing up, manufacturing lots of precision metal parts was not trivial. Although modern electronics take this further, with both operation and construction being utterly complex.

One of my vehicles is a 2009 Civic. It continues to amaze me that with minimal maintenance, that 17-year-old vehicle will fire right up with the turn of a key, with hundreds (thousands?) of parts moving in a specific way, many of them with tolerances in tiny fractions of an inch.

2010 MB C300 I bought in 2013 from a dealer after the lease expired, parked outside without a garage or cover since then (Virginia).

About 3 years ago a large branch (about 8" diameter) from an old overhanging tree fell right on the transparent sunroof cover and shattered it into a million pieces. After picking them out of the sunroof mechanism (which no longer worked after the impact) and the inside of the car, I covered the opening with several sheets of magnetized vinyl. Works great, never a drop of water inside since then and it's stayed in place without any attention. Temperature control inside the car at rest or while driving at highway speed is like it was before the damage.

Being old now I never go anywhere since I can get stuff delivered. About every 3 weeks I go out and the car starts right up, I drive a 5-mile loop to circulate the oil and then park it for another 3 weeks. Been doing this for years. I do get an oil change annually.

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

#605

Post by jimnotgym »

sl-1 wrote: post #580
childintime wrote: post #203

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

The energy balance just does not work with current agricultural paradigm. For example, plowing is really energy intensive and electric tractors just can't carry the required amount of batteries. Too heavy tractors compact the earth and sink in bad weather conditions. For electrification to really proceed in ag, we need a revolution in the paradigm, something that removes most of the energy heavy processes.

JCB came to the conclusion there was no future in EV tractors and earth movers and went all-in on hydrogen ICE instead. We will shortly see if they were correct.

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

#606

Post by lukan »

worthless-trash wrote: post #576
fsckboy wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too* *i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to…

Ah yes, encouraging people into shitty situations, the hallmarks of city life.

His tone I did not like either, but his point was that city life is not without mortal dangers either, which I think is fair.

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

#607

Post by lukan »

rgmerk wrote: post #496
dylan604 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll check out Spencer's channel. For a comedy perspective, there's Clarkson's Farm or Growing Belushi. Even though they are for entertainment, there's a still a lot of info in those shows to not be written off. However, I'm not as interested in being a farmer at that level. I'm much more interested in the homesteading aspect of farming. I'm not trying to feed the world as much as me and mine and maybe some extra. So…

Good luck, but there’s a reason why subsistence farmers move to city slums as soon as they can.

Yes, because doing it with low tech and for money is backbraking. But doing it for fun with other sources of income is a different story.

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

#608

Post by cucumber3732842 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #183
malfist wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no fancy technology in it at all It's amazing we can use huge machinery with internal combustion engines and declare it "no fancy technology"

Any technology from before the time of your grandparents, and often parents, is usually perceived to be "not fancy". Because then those elders can't tell you in your childhood what life was like before that technology. So in your lived experience that technology was always there. Reading history later on, doesn't change your emotional experiences.

Disagree. There's lots of products and goods that have become less fancy as a result of changes in labor/material cost as industrialization ran its course and the old way is considered the fancy way.

Wood furniture joined with glue and pegs rather than inserts and screws. Solid wood furniture at all. Leather and natural fibers gave way to plastics. Ornate castings gave way to simple stampings and simply castings (where things are still cast).

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

#609

Post by api »

I’ve always thought if we met super advanced aliens they would be… no more advanced than needed. In each domain they would use only the most complex thing needed to accomplish a task and no more.

100 years ago I might cook in a cast iron pan and use a slide rule to compute.

Now I cook in a cast iron pan and use a 5nm scale multi core CPU to compute.

In 100 years I might cook in a cast iron pan and use a topological quantum computer to compute. In my home in a spinning city at a Lunar LaGrange point.

We are in the try everything with everything phase of early technological development.

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

#610

Post by grosswait »

bartvk wrote: post #549
ThaDood wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shamefully have some Facebook Marketplace notifications for some Massy tractors. I'd love one. I don't even have land to use them, I just think they are neat.

I wonder if it's legal to just park your tractor in a regular parking spot across your apartment. I'm European so we have small parking spots. But would a small tractor fit in the parking spot of the biggest Ford truck?

Definitely
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