I have a JD tractor hooked onto a JD 1770 NT CCS planter, 16 row.  Been using this setup for the past 4-5 years or more.  I finished planting about 300 acres of milo and was on my last field a few days ago.  I had been having problems with row #4 wave vision, with intermittent readings, so figured it needed replaced, so I just shut it off on my previous fields.  I had my son pick up a new wave vision at local deere, so at lunch time I replaced the defective unit.  It worked very well, and accuracy was quite good.  Then my problems started about 30 minutes later. Alarms bleeped on both my 20/20 gen 1 monitor and my John Deere generation 4 monitor.   Both indicated no seed sensors verified, so thus no population was being displayed.  I could see on the JD monitor the clutches were still on, and I went out and verified seed was still dropping, although undetected by either monitor.

Being this was a Gen 1 display, I had a power module that was installed after the 20/20 seed sense for the wave vision seed tubes years ago.  Earlier over winter, I had replaced all tires on the planter, which required removing the wheel speed sensor on one of the rear wheels.  I had already dealt with me having to replace the speed sensor when first planting this spring, as apparently I didnt leave enough gap and the end was "shot".  I learned a real expensive lesson to make sure it was set correctly.  Anyway, first thought was, "****" hope that sensor didnt get into the wheel again!  I checked that, and thank goodness it was right where it was supposed to be.  I called a JD service man who is top notch on Planters, and we talked and checked things for probably an hour.  Then he had me call the tech support, he thought they might be able to help me quicker.  After calling tech support, all we ended up doing was making sure GPS was plugged in and not radar cable still plugged in.  We calibrated speed, and it was spot on.  But, still nothing on population while planting.  He was out of ideas, so suggested a local JD service person come take a look.  But, none were available for my county and the neighboring county.

So I went to back of planter where 20/20 seed sense module was, along with the power module, checked all connections, shook all the wires, traced the 4 pin cable back to tractor cab, everything looked fine.  I thought Id try it again, and lo and behold, it was counting population, as if nothing was ever wrong.  I figured must be a bad wire in harness somewhere, and ended up planting 3 hours until I finished the field with no problems.

Next day, move to new field, problem started at the get go, no seed sensors detected and thus no seed count for population.   I kept suspecting the power module could be the culprit, as sometimes when I checked on it, the red light was out, but came right back on.  I planted that field with sometime population being counted as if nothing wrong, and then bang Id have nothing, so was virtually planting blind.  It was intermittent when it happened, so you never new when it would act up.

Talked to Precision Planting tech guy this morning on phone, told him what the planter was doing, not detecting seed sensors, and he told me it was probably the power supply module for the wave vision.  I told him the red light would be on sometimes, then next time I looked it would briefly be off.  He told me that was probably the problem, unless it was the 2 pin cable supplying power to the module.  So, before I hung up, I told him, when the problem happened, I also had the message on my 20/20 display that no air force module was detected.  With that in mind, he told me it was probably the 4 pin cable coming back from the tractor cab had a bad spot in it.  Thats the way I left it.  I just put the new long cable on last year, so I doubted it was bad, as after looking it over ,I could find no places where it looked as if it had been pinched or stretched.

After talking to the Precision guy I went to the field, kind of re-routed the long cable going to the seed sense, and went to see if it would plant.  Again, Lo and Behold, it was working as it should.  I went a half a mile then stopped.  I went back to inspect things where the seed sense and power supply were, red light was on power supply, I stood there for a few minutes and blip, red light on power supply went off!  Tractor and Planter were sitting still.  I hopped back in cab, and there again, I had no air force module detected.  I folded up planter and went to house.

At the house, I left planter folded, red light had come back on.  I took my volt meter and checked the hot pin coming from the long cable from tractor cab, read 14+volts, wiggled and shook the tar out of the cable and volt meter never fluctuated as if there was a short.  I did that on each cable from there, onto the power supply, all carried proper voltage and shaking the cable did not make it fluctuate any.  So, Im at a loss as to what to try next.  I did order a new power supply for the wave visions, and a new cable(#725477).  Dealer told me I could try them to see if that fixed the problem, and would take them back, if they didnt.  I would just have to pay the shipping.

The cable from the tractor cab is #725477, it goes to back of planter, attaches to a short little cable with fuses #725679, which in turn attaches to a "Y" cable #726367.  The "Y" cable splits with one part going to air compressor and the other going to the 20/20 seed sense module.  The power supply is on the other side of the 20/20 seed sense, and it receives its power from a pigtail from a JD harness nearby.

Thats the jest of it.  For those of you that have endured this rather long post, have you any ideas what I need to check, next?

Thanks,
Jim Coady