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Rightrac up and running- User comments only
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johmur
Posted 5/5/2007 19:46 (#146653)
Subject: Rightrac up and running- User comments only


I've had a week of spring seeding to form some personal opinions on the Rightrac system; and now that much needed rain just stopped seeding progress; there is time to give a short report on my experiences. Hopefully others will have additional comments.
Articulated 4WD tractors (eg NH TJ425 and Case Steiger) need a suitable set of calibration numbers for the OnTrac autosteering controller. The initial suggested setting of 6 for "minimum output" and the "response" setting to less than 5 worked after a fashion; but resulted in a slow weave from one side of the line to the other every 150'. The territory salesman suggested that values of 23 -26 and 2-3 for response were a good startong point. WOW!!! Now I had to set the overlap to zero and actually measure the air seeder width and take into account the coverage of 56 shanks on a 10.5 inch spacing. I settled on 0.4ft. less than the 49 foot width; but only because on less than flat land there is more surface on a slope than the fixed width of the implement that you are working with. Even with some rough spots at 5.7 mph I was totally satisfied with the accuracy. On one large field I had the occassion to work on both sides of an AB line on two different days and there was no "drift".
So far I've seen no rebooting of the computer when a person starts the tractor with the ATC (computer) already running. This was an annoyance I previously had with an AgLeader PF30000 Pro in a JD sprayer. You do have to temporarily keep the key in the accessory or run position if the tractor is shut off. Apparently this is a protection to put the computer into standby; to avoid draining the battery if you were to just turn the key off at night. It does take up to 10 plus minutes if you wan't to save a full days data to the ATC. When a person wants to get seeding done that seems too slow. It can be done while moving between fields; but it seems like a long time and there is no indication that it isn't locked up like can happen with Windows. Maybe Linux doesn't have the same problems that Windows may have. I've not had any problems stopping the tractor while doing the computer work; and then starting the tractor. (ie. no sign of ATC wanting to reboot because of voltage drops)
I've had a warning message that the data sorage memory was 'almost full' after not downloading a few days of field data to the USB drives. Its too bad that the file transfer takes so long; however a person could do it more often and though the task would be more frequent it wouldn't take so long. The computer is creating .bmp and .shp and raw data files and doing a lifetime of human computations so a person can't complain too much. The actual download to the USB drive seems very fast; and this step can be used to free and clear the computer memory.
The tripod base station and its radio are good for a couple of miles non-line of sight through some poplar trees that just leafed out. Over that type of range it will get aound steel buildings and granaries; but at 3-4 miles there are some dropouts. The perimters of large fields and AB lines are still usable (when you have base station contact).
I guess that buying another Rightrac yesterday says everything about what I think of this product. Its to go on a JD 4710 sprayer and the base station will be using a tower mounted aerial to test if full coverage of our farming operations can be done from a fairly cental fixed location. I am told the hydraulic steering version is backordered till June so another OnTrac will be used. I am told that there are some advantages to the electric version in that you can be within 6 feet of the line to acquire it; whereas the hydraulic version must be within about 2 feet.

More later if this is of interest to other. Please share your experiences too.
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