Granted if it were possible to use open source components to make a task controller, then AOG could easily control existing implements such as fertilizer spreaders and seeders, to do variable rate. There’s already work being done to get AOG to output rate information based on a map. I have to admit, having AOG be able to do that would indeed be slick. But no one is going to pay thousands of dollars a year to have the privilege of developing that.
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Hello.
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I can understand why you would like and Ethernet solution but I’m sure you are well aware why CAN is use instead Ethernet on almost every industry machinery. In my opinion, Ethernet is not good in industrial environments for several reasons. Right now there are a lot of changes in the agriculture industry and we tried really hard to move from ISOBUS/CAN to ROS and ROS 2 but it will not really do the job. Maybe this is my particular case but ISOBUS is here to stay. Maybe not in the current format, but it will exist for the next generation because is a Standard and the EU pay lots of money for it to stay afloat. All the major tractor manufacturers are producing more and more tractors with ISOBUS.
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The screen for everything. Your statement is simply not true. The screen or VT is nothing. There is nothing in the screen. Everything is in the controller (yes, all the information that the screen will display is in the controller). That’s why you need just a screen for several implements because all the information is in the controller of each implement. You cannot have a seeder and a fertiliser at the same time connected to the tractor so even if you have 75 implements, just one screen will do the trick. Now come the hard part: you will have to program everything and that why major tractor manufacturers normally sell you all the implements too, because they programmed everything. So, I think you never really worked with and VT ISOBUS complient to see the full capabilities. Also, if there is no isobus implement, the VT can be used for GPS tracking, etc.
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You can implement everything by yourself as everything is detailed in the Standard (the ISO part is because is a standard). You pay to the manufacturer of the controller and VT for the licenses not to the ISOBUS old mens that made the standard 40 years ago. Just to give you an exemple, we are working right now in a ISOBUS implementation with a university from Denmark where we programmed all the TC and VT part in Python and is working.
Now, if you want to use the ISOBUS CERTIFIED sticker you will have to pay 2k per year and pass some test (this is a but awkward but the test are called: PLUG Fest). But just don’t use the sticker and that’s it, everything will work just fine. If you want to use the word BLUETOOTH in your device you will also have to pay and there are 5000 example more of these.
Isobus is great in seeders and you will see 100% of the manufacturers using it and everybody will buy the seeder. You have great control of what you are doing and you make it with very high precision without wasting products. And there are a lot more implements with ISOBUS.
So, you need the standards (and a lot of time) and will learn how to program all the ISOBUS and make your own libraries.
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You misunderstood me there. Obviously the screen is just a terminal. The original promise of isobus was that we could go away from having lots of little monitors in the cab (remember those days?) and use one terminal to display data from all your implements. To this end, ISOBUS defined the VT spec. In practice, though, I see a return to the bad old days of monitor proliferation. The Virtual Terminal is too limited and slow. Now many manufacturers are using iPads as well as your normal VT. For example blockage monitors, remote mapping systems. Watch any youtube video showing a Borgault air drill and you’ll see what I mean. FastAG has a few vids showing his busy cab.
Also I know of no commercial autosteer system that uses the ISOBUS VT. Most don’t even use ISOBUS standards for that at all, but are proprietary. For example neither Deere and Case use the isobus terminal for mapping or controlling autosteer. I don’t see how AOG would use it either. AgLeader also does it’s own thing. They do, however, offer support for ISOBUS facilities like task controllers, variable rate, etc. And all of them offer VT for implements of course.
I suggest you dive into the AOG source code and play with it yourself, and then you can suggest ways that ISOBUS integration might be done. For example, it would indeed be useful if AOG could provide variable rate information to an ISOBUS rate controller. Or drive section control via the ISOBUS mechanism.
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I do not disagree with your main message but the iPad based controller I would not like to see. On our GEN6 Fendt I use iPad for the performance monitor app (they do not have any windows or android app yet) and an IP camera screen, the iPad is most often dead because of flat battery or it does not turn on because of the heat. This is “in the North”, wonder how it behaves in hot climate. Obviously it recovers once AC has worked some time but many short tasks have been finished by then. The screen would need to be something “open source” too, allowing pro products.
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Oh sure. I don’t mean iPads are the way to go, just that that is what many vendors are now using, such as Intelligent Ag blockage alarm.
A few years ago a small company was trying to bring to market a tablet app (probably iPad at the time) that provided an ISOBUS software stack including VT and the various task controllers, along with a CAN bus dongle. They never succeeded, which is a bit unfortunate because all the big ag isobus monitors suck in various ways including slow processors and poor screens. I note that AgLeader is now running Android as the operating system.
Off topic but I dream of a nice full-color (although grayscale would probably be fine), reflective screen for monitors in a tractor cab, or on a tablet to run AOG. It may have been primitive, but nothing beats the readability of my old LCD brown box autosteer monitors.
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Trimble also
It is a tough transition to convert AOG to Android. I did a small ABLINE line painter based on AOG. Android is no windows.
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With QtQuick (which is what I was using for QtAOG), it was quite easy to run on android, particularly on a tablet. I posted some pics of it a couple of years ago. Ideally I’d want to rework the dialogs and menus to comply with Android UI principles of course.
AOG on Android would be quite awesome. Even on a phone might be useful. What you posted looks seriously fun, @KentStuff!
Rather than android, what about moving AgOpen to python and running it off a pi or other sbc inside the pcb box?
Host a local webpage and control everything from your phone or tablet. And/Or have a gui and connect an hdmi touch screen monitor. Or just have a gui and VNC in from the phone/tablet.
Running isobus with a tablet is my dream, when i bought my lb334 big square baler this spring, it didnt come with a monitor, so i was looking for a cheaper way to get a screen than just a pro 700.i researched this very thing, and found someone in i believe it was Manitoba, that had done it with a Bluetooth connection, but had scrapped the idea due to limited interest. I ended up getting around $3500 in a used pro700 and isobus cable. If this would ever happen, id definitely use it.
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I’m not sure they scrapped the idea…
https://www.jcatechnologies.com/vireo-vt-tablet-based-isobus-vt/
There was a company NX9 that made an isobus app for windows, android and some other platforms. I think the were more focused on selling the core software to manufacturers. I tried the windows version and it seemed to work as UT but the taskcontroller was a bit clunky.
I just searched for their website and find nx9 have been bought by CNH.
There are also some isobus UT apps for iPad but never tried them as you need to buy the specific CAN interface. The link @sk239 posted looks interesting but wonder what the price is like.
Yes, thats the one. They told me there wasn’t enough interest, which seems strange to me.
The language doesn’t matter if it is multi-platform, which C# and dotnet are currently. They you could run it on a SBC or whatever you want. I think only thing locking AOG to windows is the use of WinForms in the GUI. Everything else is already portable with dotnet already. If some talented folks stepped up and ported the GUI to another framework like Avalon or something else, then it would run on Linux and Mac, and anywhere dotnet core runs, which is just about everywhere we’d care about.
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An Android system would be most welcome.
Have you guys seen this library? GitHub - Open-Agriculture/AgIsoStack-plus-plus: AgIsoStack (Formerly Isobus++) is the Free ISO11783 & J1939 CAN Stack
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The guy developing that library actually has posted on the discord before. It’s some very interesting stuff.
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Hello elyon, I am Rumi. I am doing a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. I want to work on ISOBUS. Can you help me too? I would also like to do a project with you. If your answer is yes, you can give me the contact address you want. I can also give you my contact information. Mail, whatsapp, telegram etc.
I am waiting for good news from you.
what is your email i have work for your.