wireless seed/fert blockage monitor for airdrills

[SRFarms]

Does anybody out there have or even heard of
the wireless blockage monitoring for air drills? I
stumbled across it tonight on my iPad and it looks
pretty cutting edge. If someone uses it already, or
is going to buy one, what's your opinion on the
product? I'm up for just about anything, this
concept is completely different than any of the
other blockage monitor systems out there that I
know of. The company is called Intelligent
Agriculture Solutions. Thanks

[mcfarms]

There's a good discussion on it on the
combine forum.

[ColevilleH2S]

I like the concept, don't like their
sensors. Seeds have to physically hit
them and change direction of travel to
be counted.

[bucket]

I do laser alignments on coupling between pumps and motors. The laser is on one side and the reflector on the other.

It collects data and tells me where to move everything for precision.

The old system used cables and by the time you made three turns the cable was all wrapped up.

The new system uses bluetooth between the sensors on the shaft and the computer.

Why bluetooth technology can't be used for seed blockage is beyond me.

I asked the John Deere salesman why they can't have a bluetooth link so when you are calibrating the drill the screen could be on your smartphone. That would save the walking back and forth.

It can't be that difficult or expensive because apparently my 2008 1910 cart is worthless now.

[Klause]

With the Bluetooth spec you wouldn't have
reliable communication over distance. There are
other technologies like near field comm. Wifi. Etc

I made a system over the winter that
detectsblockages by measuring air preasure in
the line. Blockage means no air flow. Will test it in
spring. A sensor costs 7.50, about 50 of wiring
and an arduino board with a wireless shield. I use
a laptop with gps software for guidance so just
have a browser window overplayed with 50%
transparency for drill information.

[hobbyfrmr]

You guys are waaay ahead of me on this stuff. It is good to know that some things can still be built at home.

[oneoff]

Klause... arduino, wiring, Wifi,, Sask. and an ordinary farmer somehow just don't fit in a sentence more than a very few can grasp.
Put it into a hand delivered product and many more will throw money at you.
Until then; the power and affordability of such marvels as incredably cheap arduinos, high speed internet Wifi area coverage of townships and world wide communications ( or 50 feet to the tractor cab) just hasn't yet been grapsed (unless through cellular apps.).

At least a couple persons in Sask are extending licence free internet. I submit that instead of filling the airwaves with yet another new communication network; we add onto wireless networks that are not capped; proprietory or locked...... and already are capable of providing access to the world wide WEB (or the air seeder just behind the cab). Then practically anything can be done.

We need a lot more ingenuity and ideas from people like Klause. Too bad most people couldn't feel comfortable in presence of those who may be thinking a little more deeply.

[oneoff]

Klause.... if you have a Mega and color 240*320 LCD display...ethernet shield (and its SDHC reader/writer) it might be possible for me to send my example sketch that reads multiple A/D inputs; displays it on the LCD as a two channel chart recording and records to the SD card in .LAS format. I don't know what stage you are at with your experimenting; but I'm just a beginner(started about 6 months ago).

And because such projects must be open source; everyone is entitled to use such personal programming work.
That should be mind expanding for many readers.

[Klause]

That sounds interesting! My Email is chebock@gmail.com


I think a lot of companies like Trimble, AgLeader, etc. are in for a rude awakening if we start building some of this software / controllers ourselves, and open source it.

In Industry, change has already come about with open standards and standard Iethernet for communications.

Imagine that, One simple cable, one box, and it can communicate with everything... IsoBus is sorta getting there, but it isn't flexible enough. Not even close.


What I did is run multiplexers to take input signals from each sensor (using analog sensors)... On our drill at normal air velocity it returns about 1.4v. The minute there's a plug, it returns about 3v...