Comment by Robdel12
6 hours ago
This is the way if we can ensure manufacturing of the parts. It won’t catch on but it would be awesome to have “base” tractors that are mechanical and predictable. Then you slap on whatever software on top that helps (automation, etc). But they need to be decoupled imo.
i have a farmall hand cranked tractor, going on 90 years old, so far its been rubber parts, and clutch pads.
as far as auto mation goes, thats how implements used to work. it was a tracter/thresher/combine. then a bale counter is slapped on then maybe row sighting or guidance, etc.
if your really snazzy, the implement is actually mapping the soil for moisture, or rough composistion and holding data to use in reformulating or notating your current cultural plans, i.e. supplemental spot feeding and irrigation.
actual agricultural needs, not just fluff.
I still got a farmall 230, super easy to fix and maintain and works perfect for my small bit of land. An electric starter addon is really nice for winter starts though instead of killing your arm.
While I’m not at all surprised that they’re still running, I am a little surprised at how many Farm-all owners are on HN. Farm-all H owner checking in :)
3 replies →
And how many acres are you farming on it? Today's world of agriculture is much higher tech-based (for many good reasons, primarily yield) than back in the horse and buggy days of farming.
5.75; 7.5; and 42.6.
I know of a forklift that's pushing 80 and still used in a lumber yard (i.e. a material handling centric workplace)
Other than ~30min it takes to teach an employee to drive manual it doesn't do anything worse than the modern ones it works alongside and it does a handful of minor things much better by virtue of predating OSHA.
This is what a "bobcat" has become for UGV startups. It's a low tech proven platform that you can basically modify with attachments to do a lot of UGV work.
UGV?
From AI
> A UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that operates on the ground without a human driver onboard.
I was assuming the same. This might be fine for a small setup but I'd imagine all the digitization shenanigans was done so efficiency could increase. I imagine for large scale operations this would be like replacing your steam engine with a horse.
Could even nationalise the base tractor factory...
Whoops, I hope you are not a naturalized citizen of the US.
Whoa there, M{r,s}. Socialist! Can’t have any of our democratic infrastructure near that crazy idea! (/s)