Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Yes, the wires in that stub cable are only a few threads thick and can easily fail due to repeated flexing.
My first auto pilot several years ago was an Ag Leader Insight with their auto pilot unlock that allowed the display to be used with a Trimble Nav II. Auto sense was installed on the left front of my Deere 8120 with ILS. It worked fine but I did have some failure with the short stub cable.
In an effort to reduce flexing in the short stub cable, I made an extension that went between the auto sense stub and the Trimble tractor harness. It simply consisted of four wires with a male Deutsch connector on one end and a female Deutsch connector on the other. I tie banded the short original stub cable securely in place so that it did not bend. All bending took place in my extension cable. My reasoning was that if my homemade extension cable should develop a problem it could easily be replaced or repaired.
This helped my problem considerably. Later I got involved in a trade-up program and traded the Insight, Nave II, autosense etc. in toward an Ag Leader InCommand 1200 with Ag Leaders Steer Command. I was able to continue to use the external steering valve that had been installed with the former system. Since the Trimble auto sense was not longer involved, that problem disappeared.
My installer did need to fashion a bracket to be able to use the Ag Leader equivalent of auto sese (Pot on a rod) for my tractor. This worked well and was better than the Ag Leader suggested mount.
A year or two later, I purchased a used CIH STX-450 Quad tractor at a retirement auction. A Trimble CFX-750 with a Nav II had been installed by one of the previous owners and came with the tractor. It has auto sense at the articulation point. I expected some problem with the short fragile stub cable on it but fortunately I have not had any problem. I still have my homemade extension that I could install like I did on the other tractor but have not done so.
With this tractor, I do need to be reasonably close to the new line before I engage or the system can overreact and kick off as it attempts to acquire the new line. This might be improved with a change in settings but I find that just hand steering reasonably close before engaging works fine.
It really works quite well although I make no attempt at AB line management since their approach seems clunky compared to my Ag Leader systems. I have considered changing it but have resisted since it does steer reasonably well on WAAS.
Edited by tedbear 5/17/2025 06:03
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Trimble autosense
