Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | My EZ-Guide 500 has returned from Ag Express where it was sent for the Cold Start Problem mentioned below. The doucmentation seems to indicate that the circuit board had been repaired.
To my surprise it had Version 2.0 installed. This is somewhat in contradiction to what were we told (don't use V 2 unless you need EZ-Boom). I don't use EZ-Boom (I do use it with Autopilot).
In my very limited testing, the unit seems to start up every time without the cold start problem. Possibly the circuit board was actually repaired, possibly the new firmware helped or maybe the cold start problem will reoccur.
The menu items for the EZ-Boom are present and seem reasonable but of course I haven't actually tried them.
Once the Green Peas are harvested (this week) this tractor will be busy applying liquid hog manure on this field.
Since my Insight will also be available, it will be used in conjuction with the EZ-Guide 500. The total picture of electronics involves several pieces that are often used in other equipment at times. A Yamatake Mag Meter on the manure rig works with a Raven 450 for control and monitoring the manure. The Raven 450 is connected via a serial port connection to the Insight Application Rate Module which is connected to the Insight. An EZ-Guide 500 is connected to the Autopilot for steering. The laptop connection from the Autopilot passes GPS to the Insight. A command arm switch acts as the Raven Master and also starts/stops the EZ-Guide 500's coverage map via a relay.
As far as mapping is concerned, we should be getting two sets of maps. The Insight will provide a detailed map (showing rate and locations) and the EZ-Guide 500 should provide a basic coverage map. Why do this? Mostly because we can and I am interested in exploring the EZ-Guide 500's coverage map for general experience for customers.
In testing around the yard all this appears to work together. Some might ask, "Why use a 500 and an Insight both in the same rig?" The Insight could act as the Autopilot interface and the GPS source could be a more generic model. The reason is that the Insight is often used elsewhere during certain times of the year and is not always available for this tractor. The 500 will always stay with this tractor to be available as the GPS source and autopilot interface.
I now explored the idea of using Trimble's EZ-Guide 500 CFFE name creation utility. Generally I have avoided using these type utilities with a PF3000, Advantage or Insight since I feel that it is just as easy to Enter them in the units themselves when the number of fields is limited.
However, in the case of the 500, I feel the utility is necessary. I am disappointed in the method involved in entering the client, farm, field, event information directly due to the clunky keyboard interface.
I downloaded the utility to my work desktop computer. Upon attempting to install it, I got a message indicating that I needed to download the .NET framework software from Microsoft. This seemed to take a while but I was eventually successful. I was then able to run the CFEE Name Creation Utility.
The utility seemed straightforward enough. I entered in one client, one farm, several fields and several events. I then saved the file with an appropriate name to a jumpdrive. The utility was supposed to add _ezg_profile.cfg to my file name. I it appears that only _ezg_profile was added but possibly I wasn't actually viewing the extension.
I have not been able to get this file to load to the 500. When I insert the jumpdrive I get a message that the drive has been detected (Good so far). When I go to the Data Management menu, I see an item somewhat to the effect of: Load field data from the USB jumpdrive. This would seem to be where I should go or is there a different menu item for uploading the Client, Farm, Field, Event names?
When I accept the item of Import information - I get a message that indicates a problem with the drive.
I have tried picking another item of the data managment menu of writing to the Jumpdrive. This seems to work thus indicating that the jumpdrive itself is healthy.
I would appreciate any comments concerning my problem of uploading this configuration file to the 500.
I seem to be successful in manually creating a client, farm field secenario but have not been able to use the file from the CFEE utility.
Edited by tedbear 7/14/2007 08:39
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EZ-Guide 500 CFFE Name Creation Utility
