| AVP_Matt - 9/8/2025 13:46
Thats intriguing. Care to share some info on that? Might justify its own thread.
If you search on the AgOpenGPS website you can find several examples of homemade hydraulic steering set ups. Mine is a Hydraforce Sp08-47c cartridge valve mounted on the fender. The two outlet lines tee into the steering lines going to the cylinder. I put manual shut off ball valves in those hoses at the top of the fender so I can isolate the autosteer valve during road travel. The supply line to my valve tees into the supply line to the tractors steering orbital. That way the autosteer is also feed from the steering/brake priority valve. If you operate a remote autosteer will still get priority flow.
The load sense line is where it got tricky. Some cartridge valves have 5 ports and one is for a load sense line, they were too big for my application. I used this smaller valve and added a shuttle valve between the two outlet lines. That runs to a solenoid selector valve. When autosteer is engaged it switched the steering priority valve from receiving load sense signal from the steering orbital to receiving load sense from the shuttle valve in the autosteer system. The other issue with load sense on this tractor (John Deere 6415) is the factory load sense network had a bleed off orifice to slowly bleed off the signal when nothing was used and destroke the pump. I added a needle valve tee'd off the autosteer load sense line back to tank. That way I could adjust the bleed off rate when using autosteer to avoid hydraulic oil heating.
It was a neat project, but if I do another tractor, I will probably order a Baraki valve from Poland. He designed his own valve block which uses off the shelf cartridges specifically for this application. I hear good things about his valve and it would make installation a lot simpler.
The AgOpenGPS system works incredibly well. I am currently running RTK with dual antennas. With dual RTK the system knows the exact heading of the tractor. It also has a wheel angle sensor for feedback on steering position. With RTK corrections, exact heading information and exact wheel angle information, it performs remarkably well. I also expected it to be glitchy and buggy considering it was a free download. I am on my second season with it and I have had 0 issues.
In the picture on the screen you see a chart with a line. That displays heading error and cross track error to help you tune your system. You can see how flat and smooth they are.
I am not a hydraulic engineer, this was a farmer designed system, so copy at your own risk.
Edited by WestMIguy 9/12/2025 04:45
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Autosteer hydraulic valves
