Wouldn’t a “no-tech tractor “ be a mule? They are selling tractors based on internal combustion technology.
Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
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Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#632Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has a governor.. The P pump 12 valves (and many other multi-application diesels) come with either one of two different governors, an automotive one which has a high idle and low idle, but unrestricted fueling in between. This is what you want in a car or truck where you're controlling road speed with your foot. There's also the "industrial" governor that essentially maps lever input linearly to engine RPM, and end…
I know, I used tractor like this. Governor only keeps RPM, not the air-fuel ratio and a bunch of other emission and fuel usage related stuff. And it's a bit easier to make 3rd party addons when you just have some open bus standard, not "mount that servo on a gas pedal"
There's a device called an "aneroid compensator" that sits on top of the governor and is used to maintain a fueling profile for a specific density altitude (e.g. limit fuel at higher altitudes on naturally aspirated engines or off-boost on turbocharged engines). This effectively maintains AFR, although it is not a closed loop system. For closed loop control you need to measure AFR directly in the exhaust and compensate, which means you need (at least, a common rail system that can time injection events independently from the valve train would be even better) an electronically governed injection pump. There's no good way to do this with some 3rd party add-on. You'd be much better off just using an electronically governed Bosch injection pump (like those found on 24 valve Cummins or 1998-1999 Mercedes OM606 turbodiesels). But then you incur the encumbrance of the ECU and all the bad corporate behavior that comes along for the ride.
Also note that maintaining a particular AFR in a diesel is kind of a non goal, at least from the perspective of engine performance. With the older style, simple injection systems that are user serviceable you only get one pulse per cycle. So you can't really change AFR without compromising torque output. For a tractor, when I set the lever all the way forward I (the operator) expect it to maintain revs sufficient to maintain 540rpm at the PTO unless it is not able to do so (fueling maxed out under load). Putting more load necessarily means more fuel in for a given RPM, ergo higher AFR. Note that turbocharging changes this equation a little.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#633Earlier quoted context omitted.
A tractor does actual work like pulling an implement like a plow or spinning the PTO to power a machine like a wood splitter or well drill. Airplane engines are rebuilt every 5,000ish miles because they’re constantly running at like 50% load, it’s much harder on the engine than moving a car, a tractor is very similar. Car engines do very little work once you’re up to speed, it only takes a fraction of the max power a…
Off by an order of magnitude. Average TBO (which airplane engines routinely exceed if they don’t rust out) is 2,000 hours assuming piston, or about 300,000 miles for a Piper Arrow at cruise speed.
For comparison, latest commercial turbofans approach 6000h (they don't have a strict TBO limit AFAIU, overhauls are decided based on various inspections and measurements). At a typical airliner speed that's something like 3,000,000 miles.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#634I'm not totally sure I understand. I expected these to be selling for twice the price, not half price. I thought the whole idea of so much of the tech is to be able to lock you in and make profit that way, through servicing and features and subscriptions and whatever else. If they're giving up that entire profit stream, they have to make money somewhere else. So how are they selling these for so much less and still m…
They're using an absolutely ancient engine from Cummins that has probably paid off its r&d and assembly line costs at least 10x over. It has virtually no pollution controls on it like DEF or DPF. That alone is saving a fair amount of money.
/woosh
But I could be wrong. I can't know but I'm pretty sure the GP was writing tongue in cheek. As in mocking the business strategies that have been eroding the engines of our economy.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#635Up 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…
You say “up until a year ago”, what ended up replacing it?
I’m in the market for a tractor in roughly that size, and am very tempted to just find an old machine in decent shape. I’d be very curious about the decision/experience if you did upgrade to something more modern?
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#636Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.
And example, in the US, is how much the population makeup has changed over time:
https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-...
Go back to 1910, and more than 50% of the population lived in rural areas. And rural doesn't mean "suburbs". As this trend continues further back in time, I'd expect that people in their 30s may be living in cities in 1910, but we often not born there. They migrated from rural areas to the city.
Which means that city people even into the 50s had a very, very rural background.
So people who grew up on farms miles from any town or neighbours or stores, who had to rely upon themselves entirely, were the ones buying machines. But if you look at today, many people are apartment dwellers, or live in townhomes. They don't even have a place to fix something, let alone the tools or background.
I could fix any small engine before I was 10, work on cars before I could drive, and it's because you just picked up this stuff in a rural area. I guess my point is, if you don't know how to fix anything, and no one around you does except for specialists?
Then you probably won't care about owner repairability as much.
Sad, but probably a likely reason why we're where we are.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#637Two things: 1. LOVE this idea as I've always been a big fan of "right to repair" and even at work, FinTech SRE/DevOps, I say things like "we want this to be like a 1975 Ford: you open the hood, look inside, understand it and it's easy to fix. We don't want a 2026 Ferrari." 2. The Econ major/MBA in me wonders how long you can sell cheaper tractors that last forever. I say this b/c it's like trying to sell 100 year lig…
On point 2: take a page out of John Deere's book, sell branded hats, t-shirts, toys and sell the movie license.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#638Earlier 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?
There are farmers who join agricultural co-ops to do similar things. I've seen few operate differently - the co-op owns the machines and maintains a bunch of operators. These are requested by farmers who want work done - spraying, tilling, harvesting, etc.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#639I wish someone would do this for the pickup truck market. Lol, like make a truck for people that actually want to use it just for hauling things. Kind of like trucks used to be in the 1960's and 1970's. Not the modern ones that are more like a luxury SUV that happens to have a tiny truck bed in the back.
Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price
#640Belarus makes tractors. I bet people could have had these kinds of tractors long ago if not for the sanctions.
dictatorship is anticompetitive practice(slaves work is cheap) and relying on its produce to produce essentials is national security issue.
There's no doubt that it's a dictatorship, but Belarusian citizens are not slaves.
Furthermore, when have sanctions achieved anything other than suffering for the people?
Plus, I'm pretty sure that some sanctions are very convenient for some parties on this side of the game.