First of all I want to say thank you to everyone who has worked on developing this project. Thank you for making autosteer affordable for smaller farms like ours. Also thank you to everyone who helped with questions on discourse along the way.
Last winter after thinking about working on this for a couple years I finally decided to order components and try to set up my first system. I ordered a v4.1 standard AIO board off of eBay partially assembled. I live in the United States, in the state of Michigan. We have free RTK corrections available via the Michigan CORS network. I put a SIM card in the tablet, which costs $10 a month and I can receive NTRIP for my RTK corrections.
After I had the system working well on the tablet I decided to add hydraulic autosteer to the tractor. The John Deere 6415 has a small steering cylinder. I initially ordered a Hydraforce SP57-10 valve. After doing some math I determined that valve may be too high of flow and thought it may have been difficult control for fine adjustments. I then ordered a Hydraforce SP08-47CL valve. It did not have a load sense port, so I added a resolver ball between the two outlet lines to give me my load sense line. I added a couple manual ball valves for a positive shut off when roading.
I used the Delphi ride height sensor for my WAS.
The results were impressive. I expected the system to be quirky and have little glitches and issues that would inevitably come up as this was not a “commercial” system. I was astonished at how well the system performed. Hour after hour it ran with out issue. It maintained RTK fix at all times. It performed amazingly well along tree lines. (I used the helix gps antenna from Ardusimple) The steering was quick, smooth and accurate. I couldn’t be happier.
The system was especially helpful when we rotated out old hay fields. We could take first cutting of hay then come back and no till corn into the sod, now that we had autosteer.
The next step was rate and section control. I built the RC12 rate controller from SK21 along with the switch box to control it. It took me a little time to get it working, but after SK21 helped me though a few issues I was up and running. I installed the rate controller on a 3 point hitch sprayer I use with the 6415 for smaller field.
Once again, after I got it set up and running, the results were the same. The rate and section control ran flawlessly load after load. The combination of Autosteer along with the rate controller added hours to my days. It became easy to spray pre-emerge herbicides after dark to help keep planting on schedule.
Spurred on by the success of the first system, I built a second system for our John Deere 6000 sprayer. It is steered by a wheel motor. A Raven 460 is used for rate control and a section control relay board was added to turn sections on and off.
In closing, I am not well versed in computers or electronics. I researched as much as I could on this site before beginning. I asked for help along the way. I ran into road blocks and had several frustrating nights trying to figure out what I did wrong. I kept an attitude of every problem has a solution, I kept working though the issues until I understood them and could correct them.
If you are on the fence about trying AgOpenGPS, I would tell you, read as much as you can on this website to gain as much understanding as possible. You will never reach the point you feel truly ready to undertake this (at least I didn’t). Once you start work, keep at it. You will get though if your persistent.
Thank you
