Fairfield County, Ohio, USA | We have an InCommand 1200 (with GPS 7500 using WAAS), and right now all we're using it for is guidance/steering. We also have a Loup Elite Drill Monitor, which monitors our Deere 1560 drill (24x 7.5"). Last year was our first year having both the InCommand and the Loup Elite. (I think it was last year? Maybe the year before. Time means nothing anymore.) Anyway, I've concluded that I am awful at simultaneously controlling the drill, steering back to the correct row, and telling the InCommand to start (or stop) "painting" all at once. A few months ago I asked our Ag Leader dealer rep whether there was any way to make it so that the InCommand could automatically start/stop the logging based on what the drill is doing, without fully monitoring the seed performance and without having to manually start/stop it when we lower/raise the drill. I was told no, there's no way to do that.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been reading here on AgTalk, quite a lot, and it looks to me like this exact thing is possible. Maybe even common? I have a number of questions though.
I *think* that all I need is an Application Rate Module, a lift switch, a weatherpack extension cable to connect the lift switch to the module, and.... some kind of cabling to connect the module to the display. Then the InCommand would automatically -- without the operator having to tell it to start and stop painting -- log when the drill is in the ground doing its thing. Does that sound right?
Assuming that I'm right about that, how does this work with different implements? For example, if I also wanted to log the operation of a disc, or a gravity fertilizer spreader. Is the general idea to leave the Application Rate Module in the tractor and then just plug in a different lift switch for each implement? Or is it better/easier to attach the Application Rate Module to the implement? I don't know whether there are differences in how the InCommand handles implements in that regard, since I've never connected an implement to InCommand.
We're more-or-less happy with the Loup Elite Drill Monitor, but is there some way that I should consider using InCommand for that also? I know that Ag Leader is good at monitoring seed tubes for corn, and I assume soybeans, but how does it do with small things like wheat or cover crop mixes? I think that I was shooting for 1,900,000 seeds per acre with the last stuff I ran; the Loup was not dead-on but it was within 10%-ish. Close enough that I was happy with it. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should just stick with the Loup Elite, or switch to something that InCommand will monitor? If the latter, what sensors should we get for the drill? (Are the Loup sensors compatible? I know that Loup Elite is compatible with Kinze muxbus sensors, which makes me wonder if these Loup sensors might work with an Ag Leader PMM.) Does it do the same thing as Loup, where we can only monitor some of the rows (we monitor 4/24 right now) and it assumes that the rest of the rows follow the combined average?
Has anyone taken a NMEA signal from InCommand and fed it into a Loup Elite, so that it can log positioning data along with the seed population? I've read that Loup can accept NMEA, and that InCommand can produce it, but I've never read of anyone doing that combination.
I know this is a lot. Perhaps more than I should have put in a single post. But thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to give. :) |
Ag Leader InCommand 1200 and Deere 1560 Drill
