[HN Gopher] Farmers are having to hack their own tractors to ma...
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Farmers are having to hack their own tractors to make repairs
Author : clouddrover
Score : 151 points
Date : 2021-02-09 13:41 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| syntaxing wrote:
| I always wondered about this, are there any laws preventing
| repairs with 3D scanner + machining your own parts/selling such
| parts?
| 1-6 wrote:
| From printers to coffeemakers to tractors. Companies are going to
| keep right-to-repair off limits to crowdsourcing hackers and
| mechanics. Voiding Warranties and Certifications used to be for
| that purpose. This is an old practice which needs to end.
| mr_overalls wrote:
| At least several years ago, the cracked John Deere firmware was
| done by Ukrainian hackers. This seems like a serious
| vulnerability for supply-side attacks.
|
| High-end tractors have been driving autonomously for years, with
| precise GPS, multiple cameras, Internet connections, etc. It's
| not unthinkable that hostile nation-state actors could hack the
| firmware to simply direct a 25-ton combine to leave the field and
| drive through the nearest population center (or high-voltage
| transmission line, oil storage tank, etc.)
| the-dude wrote:
| You are joking, right?
| jandrese wrote:
| The 5kph vehicle of terror!! Very slowly menacing the
| population!
|
| It's like those bad monster movies where the people just stand
| their screaming while guy in the heavy and clunky rubber suit
| slowly waddles towards them.
|
| Hacking something like a Tesla would probably be better. At
| least then you can maximize the V in your E=1/2mv^2
| calculation.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I need to find you some pictures of this. It happened, but
| with an angry human in Vermont. Flattened a bunch of police
| cars. Here are some [1] but I know there were more [2][3].
| Trying to find the pictures of the cops laughing. Well, those
| pictures are gone, but you can see most of the story.
|
| [1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/vermont-man-uses-
| tracto...
|
| [2] -
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182958/Police-
| Vt-f...
|
| [3] - https://motleynews.net/2012/08/03/lmao-vermont-man-
| upset-ove...
| Person5478 wrote:
| That is absolutely hilarious.
| anticensor wrote:
| Combine harvesters can travel up to 40km/h when the
| harvesting mill is not operating.
| jldugger wrote:
| > 25-ton combine to leave the field and drive through the
| nearest population center
|
| Well, the good news is these things have a pretty low top
| speed, so I think you'd be able to dodge out of the way.
| Laarlf wrote:
| Tractors gave top speeds over 20 mph. If i was on foot, i
| would not call that "low"
| grogenaut wrote:
| and if they have to swerve to hit you they're going to
| roll. they are not stable vehicles at speed.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is just a fantasy - they have to have a driver inside.
|
| Their ripoff prices, however, are very much real
| [deleted]
| zucked wrote:
| Prices for pre-tech tractors have been spiking as a result, too:
| https://www.startribune.com/for-tech-weary-midwest-farmers-4...
| missedthecue wrote:
| Seems like a market opportunity for someone to start building
| simple tractors.
| tkinom wrote:
| 3D print spare parts for 20-30 years tractors>
| ActorNightly wrote:
| I really wonder how big of a problem with tractors,
| considering there really isn't anything out there for this
| issue.
|
| Looking at car world, for cars even with locked ecus, you can
| get things like piggyback or standalone units, transmission
| controllers, awd controllers, dynamic suspension controllers,
| and so on, because there is a huge market for it both in
| amateur racing and enthusiast modification, and most of these
| void warranty.
|
| Seems like this would be pretty straightforward to do - in
| the end, all mechanical equipment follows some raw control
| signal that easy to intercept and modify. Legally, you can
| even get around most restrictions by selling programmable
| modules and then making the software open source.
|
| My guess is that paying John Deer for whatever they ask is
| not a big deal financially to most (although probably not
| all) farmers.
| netfl0 wrote:
| "Midwest farmers face a crisis. Hundreds are dying by
| suicide."
|
| "But U.S. farmers are saddled with near-record debt,
| declaring bankruptcy at rising rates and selling off their
| farms amid an uncertain future clouded by climate change
| and whipsawed by tariffs and bailouts."
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/in-
| depth/news/investigations/2020/0...
| hoseja wrote:
| Or this is happening precisely because the current
| manufacturers are confident they've managed to close all
| entrypoints. A "simple tractor" probably has no chance
| passing environmental and other regulations.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Seems like a market opportunity for someone to start
| building simple tractors.
|
| That would create a opportunity for the EPA to shoot your
| dog. This isn't a market you can just enter. Manufacturing
| goods that have to last for decades doesn't start up and
| scale up like software. It would take so much time to build
| up a competitor that the incumbents would have more than
| enough notice to crush you.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Or to sell repairability as a feature.
| dandersh wrote:
| Which is why I was floored when my friend told me that not only
| did they get less than expected for theirs, but the person
| bought it to scrap it.
|
| This was in MN and using an online auction too.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Sounds like the market isn't tech savvy, which is a huge
| shame.
| meowster wrote:
| Either your friend was selling for below scrap value, or
| maybe the buyer worked for John Deere.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I love reverse engineering hardware/firmware and am reasonably
| successful at it. I'd love to help with this. How do I get
| involved? Is there a mailing list? Discord? Forum?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Rent some billboards around Dubuque, Iowa?
| peter303 wrote:
| A growing issue with cars too.
|
| Manufacturer liability is probably voided if you do your own
| software or hardware repairs.
| Jkvngt wrote:
| John Deere is an abusive company which despises its customers,
| and these customers reward them by gleefully buying that new
| million dollar harvester and doffing branded caps at every
| occasion. It's extremely difficult to pity the farmer in this
| case. They are planning soon to change all their dimensions to
| conform with metric farming practices and spacing, which will
| entail having to re-buy all new stuff again. Oops maybe I
| shouldn't have said that last part out loud, it might still be a
| secret...
| zucked wrote:
| Is there a better option? Is Case or whatever else (sorry, not
| up on farm implements) a better option?
| randomdata wrote:
| When I needed to fix my Case IH planter, the dealer handed me
| the service manual (book) and off I went.
|
| When I needed to fix my John Deere combine, the repair tech
| had to decrypt the service manual on his laptop for me.
|
| There does seem to be some different cultures around
| protecting information, but I was able to access what I
| needed in both cases, so I'm not sure it makes that much
| difference at the end of the day.
|
| I haven't had much trouble with Deere not willing to work
| with me and my equipment. No more than any other brand, and
| my shed has all the major brands in it.
|
| There is no doubt a squeeze on people who don't own John
| Deere equipment, but wish to have an independent career
| fixing John Deere farm equipment on behalf of other farmers.
| That isn't a problem seen by farmers directly, though.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _It's extremely difficult to pity the farmer in this case._
|
| What are the available options?
| moistbar wrote:
| Kubota and New Holland seem to be popular in my area, to the
| extent that I used to drive past a Kubota dealership on my
| way to some high school extracurricular or other.
| Jkvngt wrote:
| Boycott the company, buy from another manufacturer, lobby the
| Iowa government to stop these abusive practices. Or just sit
| back, bend over, pull down your pants, and take it while
| wearing the branded cap of the company which is abusing you?
|
| Really it's all about choice now isn't it?
| MikeUt wrote:
| > lobby the Iowa government to stop these abusive
| practices.
|
| Isn't the right to repair movement exactly that? I don't
| think farmers are entirely absent from it.
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| Parts availability is a massive factor. When you break down
| mid-task, your task is often time sensitive. You can't
| always risk having your tractor stuck in the middle of a
| paddock for weeks while you get new parts in.
|
| So, the reality of choice is pretty much down to what your
| local tractor seller/repairer supports, because they'll
| have the supply chain setup to cope with certain brands
| only.
| Jkvngt wrote:
| The issue is that the tractor senses if you try to repair
| it yourself. There's a trap mechanism which will punish
| you if you're audacious enough to try to fix your
| machine.
| falcolas wrote:
| If you've lived in the midwest anywhere in the last, I dunno, 5
| decades, you'll know that John Deere plays the long game. They
| advertise to people from their infancy to their adulthood. They
| have more brand recognition in the midwest than either Pepsi
| and Coke.
|
| When you've been exposed to this kind of life-long influence,
| it's hard to break out of the mindset. You _know_ John Deere
| Green, and they 've been associated with quality and durability
| and they belong with you on the farm. They're all but family.
|
| Case, or that weird orange company with the foreign name, on
| the other hand, are strangers who you don't know if you can
| trust.
|
| Advertising, no matter how much we say to the contrary, works.
| And John Deere are old hands at that trade.
| m463 wrote:
| Harley Davidson. Marlboro. Jack Daniels. American Music and
| Films.
|
| If you ever want to see the power of advertising go to
| another country and it will all be there.
| onethought wrote:
| That isn't just advertising that's American soft power
| projection (especially with music and film) - trade
| agreements have helped the others.
| grogenaut wrote:
| In the 90s in rural missouri everyone had those orange
| tractors (new). Or the red ones (older, or new combines). Or
| the blue ones (new). Not very many green ones except rusting
| in the field or as the toy old one you used for around the
| property work while the real one was doing real work.
| jasongill wrote:
| Not that you're wrong that JD has a huge following, but over
| the past 5 decades they have basically gone the way of
| American auto manufacturers: everyone knows that their
| products are inferior to the "imports" (which are all made in
| America anyway), and they survive by brand recognition, big
| head start establishing a dealer network, and servicing
| product categories that nobody else does.
|
| Kubota is basically the Toyota to John Deere - they are
| eating JD's lunch in quality and buyer/owner perception (as
| well as sales volume) in the "small cars" segment, and is
| quickly moving up-market. Kubota doesn't sell combines yet,
| for example, and they are still not outselling JD in anything
| other than compact tractors, but the people who buy those
| (myself included) will never go back to JD. Deere has been
| plagued with quality issues and where they do innovate with
| some flashy features at times (just like the F-150 does vs
| the Tundra), they seem to often cause more trouble than they
| can be worth.
|
| I would say that (depending on the "trade war" of course)
| Kubota and the "imports" will surpass JD in total units sold
| some time in the next decade and then start eroding their
| dominance in the large tractor market in the following
| decade, if not sooner.
| jet_32951 wrote:
| Yes. I had a Kubota B7800 for about fifteen years. The JD
| competitor was made by Iseki, priced higher, and known for
| hydraulic system problems. The choice was easy and I never
| regretted it.
|
| At the same time I bought the Kubota I worked for a company
| that made automatic steering systems one could retrofit to
| many tractors... but not JD, who were already controlling
| their hydraulic system access.
|
| Never bought JD, stuck with Kubota.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| As the article alludes, they really aren't different from Tesla
| in this regard.
| adolph wrote:
| If they doff the branded caps, they are taking them off which
| suggests not having an affinity with the brand.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Kinda interesting that people seem to agree here that John
| Deere is abusive, but Apple does the same thing with consumer
| electronics, and tends to have a favorable view on this
| subreddit.
| johnbrodie wrote:
| Tesla is pushing the same anti-right-to-repair angle and also
| seems to get (mostly) admiration by the "tech community" at
| large. As seems to always be the case, it's a lot easier to
| be critical when the company/group/individual isn't "on your
| side".
| 93po wrote:
| Tesla avoids supporting third party repairs because
| repairing a potentially damaged self driving system or
| damaged batteries can have really bad outcomes. People
| scrutinize Tesla enough as it is without shoddy repairs
| making it worse
| syshum wrote:
| You do know that is EXACT same flawed logic that Auto
| Manufacturers have been making for Decades... and the
| EXACT same aurgument that John Deere, Apple and every
| other Anti-Repair advocate makes
|
| The plebs just can not be trusted to repair their own
| things, it is far too dangerous. If you repair you iPhone
| you might burn down your home, if you repair your brakes
| you might kill grandma, and if you repair are Tesla you
| might .....
|
| Safety has never, and will never be a valid reason to
| prohibit independent / self repair
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Do you know how many farming accidents involve tractors
| and combine harvesters etc. ?
|
| The exact same argument could apply there.
| [deleted]
| sjwright wrote:
| It is not the same. John Deere is taking predominantly
| mechanical devices and embedding technology for the purpose
| of artificially locking them down.
|
| Apple is building devices that are inherently difficult or
| impossible to service without a supply chain of bespoke parts
| --and refusing to open their parts supply chain.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Thats literally the same.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The people who would run to Deere's defense don't hang out on
| HN.
|
| Tech companies named after fruit and car manufacturers (yes,
| plural) who's names begin with T and end with A can do little
| wrong around here. Sure they catch a little flak because they
| engage in less than ideal behavior (just like every other
| sociopaths BigCo engages in) but they get at least a partial
| pass or benefit of the doubt because they make products the
| HN demographics like and would at least consider owning.
| Comparatively nobody here sees themselves using their bonus
| as the down payment on a swather so the narrative devolves
| into a simplistic and nuance free "Kubota good, Deere bad".
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I think a differentiating factor could be history.
| Historically farmers have always been able to work on their
| equipment and this has been long factored into the cost of
| running a farm. Slowly they are being pushed out of that
| repair model and their costs are going up. Farm equipment
| gets a massive amount of physical abuse and it is expected
| they will break and the farmer can fire up that old generator
| welder, get out the magic mallet of repair and give 'er a few
| good whacks. Most of the diesel engines are even designed to
| be field repaired. On some of them, you can even pop the
| cylinder sleeves out, swap out the piston rings and you are
| back in business. People are still coming up with newer
| simpler tools to do this quickly. If you want to see some
| amazing ad-hoc repair jobs, watch Andrew Camarata's youtube
| channel. [1] He brings old rusty equipment back to life and
| then uses them to make money.
|
| Apple devices have always been designed with limited end-user
| serviceability. You can reload the OS, change some firmware
| settings, but not much more. In my opinion, the majority of
| people buying these devices expected them to "just work".
| When that ceases to be the case, people go to the Genius Bar.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewCamarata/videos
| detaro wrote:
| The limits on (user-)serviceability of Apple et al are
| regular discussions here.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| John Deere is another MBAized company that is no longer in
| touch with reality, just powerpoints presentations.
| Wistar wrote:
| A bit of an aside: An article on Ag Web about a farmer with 7,000
| acres, and who has limited his tractor fleet to only old, but re-
| vamped, tractors for which he has assembled his own maintenance
| team.
|
| "Misfit Tractors a Money Saver for Arkansas Farmer"
|
| "Reed estimates a modern tractor depreciates at approximately $85
| per hour."
|
| https://www.agweb.com/news/misfit-tractors-money-saver-arkan...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Did a quick search for open source machine templates, was not
| disappointed: https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-
| machine-index/
|
| Even though many of these are marked as "in planning," my
| aspiration to have a farm now includes building it with open
| source machines.
| imtringued wrote:
| Open Source Induction Furnace, Press forge, Bioplastic
| extruder? Really? These are extremely specific machines. A lot
| of them in the $100k range. Nobody is going to make an
| opensource design for them.
|
| My biggest disappointment though is that their 3D printer isn't
| complete yet even though that's low hanging fruit. Simply
| modifying an existing design would have satisfied me but nope.
| They don't even have a 3D printer design.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Yeah, OpenSourceEcology has been around a while, but it's
| really just a handful of devices that are fully built and in
| use: the "power cube engine", "tractor" (really a skid-steer
| loader) and the compressed earth brick-maker are complete and
| have working prototypes.
|
| https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/
|
| Hopefully they get some more funding or someone else takes up
| the torch. Even then, these are generalist machines; I don't
| know how far they scale up.
| hobofan wrote:
| Didn't they have quite some funding for at least some time?
| As you said, they've been around for a long time (almost 20
| years now) and for that their output isn't really that great.
| I'm not sure about the exact reason, but I've always had the
| feeling that the people working on the projects had little
| prior engineering experience and were progressing via slow
| trial and error.
|
| I'm wondering if possibly a Youtube channel with an
| experienced engineer in charge and Patreon support wouldn't
| be a better backdrop for such a project. Something like
| Kliemannsland (German Youtube channel that runs their own
| compound) meets Stuff Made Here.
| [deleted]
| random5634 wrote:
| 1) Are farmers really unable to repair their tractors? I know the
| Deere has a major repair network and their PowerGuard plans - you
| can do relatively comprehensive coverage for 5 years or so I
| think with a $100 deductible.
|
| 2) Don't they sell original, reman and alternative parts?
| https://www.deere.com/en/parts-and-service/parts/
|
| 3) Don't they have a major dealer network - 3,000 dealers in the
| US alone? At least where I am there is a ridiculous number of
| deere dealers. Is the complaint that farmers cannot fix things
| themselves vs not get repaired at all?
|
| 4) Isn't a lot of this hacking around getting features you didn't
| pay for - license key gen stuff and getting around speed limiters
| etc? I'm not sure I count that as "repair" though I know it's
| super annoying and everyone wants to turn off stuff, turn off
| features.
|
| Same thing with DPEF deletes and bypasses on diesel equip in US
| (also rampant) and a lot of the tuning. Plenty of folks "hack"
| their equip with a tune or to do a DPEF delete, then submit a
| warranty claim (at least in cars) when they burn something up.
| But major demand is not around repairs, a lot of the black market
| demand is around this other stuff.
|
| 5) The integrated combine stuff is not simple software, there def
| is a major investment in the tech stack for some "farms". I might
| call it ag engineering now? 3 cm accuracy season to season,
| active yield management (ie, monitors how settings affect yield,
| can map yield, tweak settings etc etc).
| Timpy wrote:
| If a piece of equipment breaks down in the field you need to be
| able to repair it right there and continue working. Stopping
| what you're doing to take it to the Apple store isn't
| acceptable.
| random5634 wrote:
| The repairs that need software changes are not (generally)
| the ones that are at issue here.
|
| One big issue is that a fair number of tractor code faults
| are emissions control faults on these machines which are
| super annoying as the emissions system is sensitive
| especially as it ages. That may be in part a problem with
| overly strict emissions controls. So deleting emissions
| controls is popular in this space. And yes, dealers actually
| do help with this on tractors.
|
| If you need to be able to hack your stuff in this way - lots
| online here: https://machinery-tunes.com/john-deere-dpf-egr-
| def-scr.html
| syshum wrote:
| John Deere really needs to buy better bot software.
| random5634 wrote:
| Has anyone here actually worked on a farm at all? I did
| briefly when younger and seem to know a fair bit more than
| most commenting with snarky comments. And I know almost
| nothing relatively.
| syshum wrote:
| It is not a matter of working on a farm or not, your post
| reads like something strait out of the John Deere PR Dept
| or from /r/hailcorporate on reddit.
| call_me_dana wrote:
| For future reference, you are supposed to paste _only the
| response, in your own words_ to the individual topic or
| question from the talking points we provide you. Not the entire
| set of forum talking points all at once! Please talk to your
| supervisor at once to re-evaluate your career goals at the
| company.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| Kathy J. Strubbins
|
| Director, Marketing
|
| John Deere Corporation
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| This is great, thank you.
| random5634 wrote:
| Uh?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| FWIW I built an RTK GPS system with two raspberry pi's and
| three $75 GPS receivers and it has 3cm accuracy. Deere didn't
| do anything to get that accuracy beyond integrating existing
| GPS technology in to their tractors.
|
| For others that want to know more check out:
| http://rtkexplorer.com/
|
| Also there's a new device called the OpenRTK330 that looks
| promising.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Farming is not a high margin activity, and often depends on
| subsidies to operate. That's why farmers have always done their
| own mainteinance whenever possible.
| [deleted]
| random5634 wrote:
| Deere is moving towards a different model -> all data under
| your seat getting uploaded to the cloud, equip that is much
| more hands off (autodrive and steer, very high accuracy track
| following). Their machines can run $800,000. They seem to be
| targeting larger farms / ag engineering models -> driving
| very large scale efficiencies.
|
| They see more margin in this cloud based revenue, the same
| way Microsoft does with its push into the cloud. Eventually
| it's probably going to migrate to essentially power by the
| hour type models that are already out in other higher end
| equipment. Their powerguard stuff is trending that way (all
| costs included for $100 deductible).
|
| It's going to be some other company (Kubota?) that could do
| the open firmware / open source version. There should be some
| market for this, not sure how commercial it will be.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Oh, if y'all have never checked out Farm Hack
| (https://farmhack.org/tools) it's pretty neat. It's a community
| site for farmers to hack together various random tools (including
| tech-based tools like a Drupal-powered system for farm
| management) for their farm.
|
| I don't run a farm or anything, I just think it's neat.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| What are all the components of common farm equipment? Is there a
| list like internal combustion engines, hydraulics, steel frames,
| axles, etc? I'd be curious if we can match each component to an
| open source solution or some method of manufacturing it
| independently at small scale.
| [deleted]
| nbar wrote:
| I often wonder in some markets if there isn't an opportunity for
| a Leica M6 approach.
|
| Here is a well built analog object that should last generations.
|
| Perhaps the analogy fails when you think about the supporting
| characters, film development, tractor parts, but it does seem a
| market luddites version of "x" exists.
| m463 wrote:
| I've wondered about this. I have a friend with an old tractor,
| and it's a marvel of simplicity. You could literally fix most
| problems yourself.
|
| At some point you do need someone else's technology tree (like
| an engine case).
|
| And at that point, I think computers can simplify things.
|
| There are all kinds of things that work better if you have a
| wire and a solenoid, as opposed to a mechanical linkage, or a
| bundle of individual wires or a vacuum line.
| evancox100 wrote:
| I feel like the solution here should be simple: more options for
| farmers to buy from different companies, if there aren't enough
| already. If Deere is being sneaky about repair/maintenance costs
| in the back end that can also be handled via existing
| laws/regulations on consumer protection, false marketing,
| etc.(though of course the fines are almost always never high
| enough). Maybe there's are some transparency regulations that
| could be put in to place to make it very clear the nature of the
| transaction people are getting in to when they buy/lease such
| equipment. (Like how airlines have to show the ~total price of
| the ticket up front.)
|
| Disclosure: used to work in a group that made the chips that
| would do the locking down in applications like this.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Between safety standards, emissions standards, and all sorts of
| other requirements that apply to heavy machinery in the US
| there are plenty of options for the domestic manufacturers to
| sneak in a little good ol' regulatory capture masquerading as
| something else.
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(page generated 2021-02-09 23:01 UTC)