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Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

wheelfront.com

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

#431

Post by Loughla »

beAbU wrote: post #209
Loughla wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did yours have a foot feed for the accelerator? I've never seen one without a hand feed for the rpm's on the steering column.

The fancy ones had an accelerator pedal, but most just had the lever on the steering column.

Wild. We ran a 175 and 1100 for our daily tractors before Grandpa died and I quit farming (big ass John Deere machines for the real work at planting and harvest though).

They're phenomenal little machines that can do 99% of what you need. It blows my mind that for years, Grandpa farmed with a little Ford smaller than the 175. I can't imagine planting with that thing. The ww2 generation really were tough as nails.

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

#432

Post by pcblues »

tempest_ wrote: post #143
dylan604 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my take as well. How many 3rd parties might be able to bring on upgrades/modifications to a "dumb" tractor to make it smart vs only being able to buy a "smart" tractor from one vendor and be forced into it's rules/restrictions/prices

Plenty of options for putting auto steer on a dumb tractor already exist.

The kid? :)

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

#433

Post by kube-system »

lallysingh wrote: post #388
MisterTea wrote: post #176

Earlier 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.

I think this has all suddenly shifted with high-quality programming AIs available. How difficult is this to implement with Claude?

The software is certainly easier to build, but there's a lot of hardware involved here beyond the tractor. Claude is not necessarily going to make it easier to do soil sampling or measuring field conditions or yield outputs.

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

#434

Post by Ancapistani »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #343
npongratz wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. ... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!

Oh, god yes. I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every…

Without going too far into the weeds here, IMO this experience is representative of gun rights, zoning, and all sorts of other differences between urban and rural.

Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.

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

#435

Post by dylan604 »

pcblues wrote: post #432
tempest_ wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of options for putting auto steer on a dumb tractor already exist.

The kid? :)

I had to scroll back up to see what this reply was to, to get the full chuckle and yup, I was told frequently by my male parental unit that the top two reasons for having kids was chores and tax deductions. But there's a reason farm families leaned on the large side. The more hands you had helping the less hard things could be while never being easy

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

#436

Post by Kaibeezy »

adverbly wrote: post #376

This but for cars This but for TVs This but for robot vacuums This but for security cameras This but for baby monitors This but for washing machines This but for fridges Anyone else got any requests?

There was a blender that uses a printed or CNC case and basic repair parts for all the mechanicals… Open Funk re:Mix blender https://www.openfunk.co/pages/re-mix

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

#437

Post by salawat »

cout wrote: post #121
svnt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems almost completely untrue? The new models have engines that are smaller turbos, that part is true — but they get >30% better fuel economy, and they output more power. The reliability might become an issue down the road especially in hybrid engines but the data so far don’t seem to support your assertions. The one exception is maybe the Tundra 3.4L but that seems to still be ambiguous as to the root cause, a…

I wonder if this notion comes from the 80s, when engines with turbos had lower compression ratios for reliability. Today's turbocharged motors have higher compression ratios than in the malaise era, and the turbos have a lot less lag. Turbos no longer mean you have to sacrifice fuel economy for performance (unless you have a lead foot).

>Turbos no longer mean you have to sacrifice fuel economy for performance (unless you have a lead foot).

That's incorrect. Virtually every turbo'd gas car runs slightly richer than stoich to use the unburnt fuel to manage temp/knock. Diesels, you actually get more efficiency out of with a turbo for free. With gas you're practically guaranteed to be throwing fuel out the pipe.

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

#438

Post by jcgrillo »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #361
AlotOfReading wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need electronics and computers for cost-effective compliance with emissions requirements. Emissions limits have been one of the most positive government policies in my lifetime, saving millions of QALYs. There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you…

defeat devices aren't even complicated (they just fake the sensor data to ECU to get what owner needs). Locking down is pointless. Most people are not tuning their cars. IF we wanted to do it properly, I'd imagine we'd have zero mandatory locks on ECU, just a little closed down black box with sensor installed in relatively tamper-proof way (of course there will always be one, the target is for 90% of people to not bo…

What would you be accomplishing by trying to control end user behavior like that? As a manufacturer, there are certain standards your machine must meet when it leaves your factory. After that, a whole separate set of standards applies to users--e.g. EPA rules about emissions equipment tampering. As a manufacturer, though, you don't need to attempt enforcement. Leave that to the government, it's their job. Locked down, proprietary hardware and software doesn't ultimately achieve enforcement, it just makes tampering more difficult at the cost of serviceability. This is a dumb trade.

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

#439

Post by [deleted] »

hypercube33 wrote: post #367
irq-1 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another: https://www.slate.auto/en/personalization A basic truck that you can customize. > BRING YOUR OWN TECH > Bring the apps you know and love to create the experience you want. Instead of a bulky, distracting, and quickly outdated infotainment system, a Slate can come with something simpler: a smartly designed mount that fits a phone or tablet and a holder for a portable Bluetooth speaker. Heating and air conditi…

No door speakers or mounts for them, like it hasn't been a thing for 70 years irks me to no end

[deleted]

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

#440

Post by jcgrillo »

edm0nd wrote: post #334
arein3 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For tools electric is the answer. To take a chainsaw, the battery needs to be replaced just as often as with refilling the fuel tank. And with newer batteries you might recharge the depleted one as fast as discharging a fresh one. Not sure, just an assumption. The future for tools is electric 100%.

my brother in Christ, electric chainsaws are garbage, have you ever used one? I tried one out to clear a huge 3 foot wide tree that fell on my property and yeah those things cannot hang with gas powered chainsaws in any way, shape, or form. No one is using electric chainsaws for cutting anything significant. they may have a place in the distant future but in 2026, aint no way.

I like the electric saw for limbing and felling small stuff because it's light and quiet but yeah for anything bigger than like 9" or extended work it's not the tool for the job.
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