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Econ lightbar / autosteer
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tedbear
Posted 3/5/2007 07:01 (#114929 - in reply to #114897)
Subject: Raven 600


Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn.
I personally use a Raven 500 (now 600) for the task of "getting on the right row". The Raven lightbar can run off a Raven GPS or many other brands of GPS that are reasonably fast and accurate.

Any lightbar will require a reasonably fast and accurate GPS to work well. The very low end GPS's will not be suitable. The very high end (RTK) are not necessary (but wouldn't hurt).

You have serval choices but I happen like the Raven for this job as it has two setup choices which are helpful for your situation. They are ROW and SED.

The ROW setup is designed for finding the correct ROW as you desire. The thought is that you wish to accurately "find the right row" and once you are on it, you will drive by watching the row and not the lightbar. In this setup, You push a button on the keypad at a point relatively close to the end (100-200'). The system in a sense marks this point and advances the swath width to the right or left (depending on how you have been turning). Your perform all your other end of row tasks (shut off booms, slow down etc.) and turn towards the next pass. The lightbar gives you information with both LEDs and symbols/numbers to give you an indication of where to turn in. Once you are on the correct row have progressed down the field, the lightbar becomes passive and does not give active guidance since the assumption is that you will be following the rows anyway.

The other setup is really designed for Seeding (SED). It is similar in that a key is pushed to mark a spot towards the end of the current pass and then guidance is given for the next pass. The difference is that in SED active guidance is given throughout the entire pass. I use this setup for finding rows rather than the actual ROW setup. The reason being that in ROW, the guidance becomes passive once you have passed a point in the new pass that is aligned with the point where the key was pressed in the previous pass. I prefer to still have the guidance clues across the field as SED provides but I just don't pay any attention to them when I know I am on the correct row. Others have stated that they prefer the guidance to go passive as it does with the ROW setup.

Some might complain that these setups require an extra keystroke that you must remember to do when approaching the end of a pass. This is true but becomes second nature after a bit. The reason that the keystroke is necessary is because the system then does a recalculation of the current position to give its best guess for where you should turn in. Generally you will be turning in within a short time frame of pushing the button, this takes care of any GPS drift or planter drift that might be involved.

Contrast this arrangment to a conventional setup where an AB line is struck (all the subsequent passes are created at that time) and then those passes are used for spraying on rows. This arrangement might work well enough for tillage but the eventual "creep" due to GPS drift and planter drift will cause the lines to quickly be unacceptable. Most systems have a method to shift the lines for these situations. This means that the operator can manually shift the lines when they notice that this creep is unacceptable. The ROW and SED setups, in essence, handle this shift on every pass.

The Raven lightbars have many other setups including the more standard AB lines etc. which are desirable in other situations. The Raven lightbar is also involved with Raven's Auto steering components.

I also prefer the large display that these Raven utilize for my failing eyesight. Since the 500/600 have been out for a while, you may be able to find some on the secondary market at a fairly reasonable price.

Edited by tedbear 3/5/2007 07:08
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