Very nice description and setup . Do you have a valve that can reduce pressure or flow. It sounds like you have full pressure when steering, when you say you feel jerks in the cab.
I have a pressure compensated flow regulator in line of the P line, but not found it really helps other than just slowing down max flow, but when valve is partially open / making small movements, its never really going to help. Valve is really to big but cant find anything more suitable for LS systems…
I think once I get the control dialed in it will be better.
Update to this project,
Got my dual antenna project finished up / fitted to the tractor, started some initial testing in the yard, but sadly super wet again at the moment so yet to get out field and really try it out.
Bought pair of F9P’s and an esp32 (ESPDuino), wired across the UART ports with bridge wires to allow me to stack the boards, and also with the power / ref voltage pins and mounted it in a box, which is mounted in the roof of the trator:
Then made up some mounts for the antennas, wanted to get them as far apart as possible and up high enough that my existing beacons / antennas etc wouldnt be in the way of them, so mounted them up to the side and above the flashing beacons, and stiffened up the mounts so there was no movement / vibration in them:
A little hard to see, but the black parts next to the orange flashers!
Will update with my results in the field! But both units are getting full RTK fix from my base station in the yard, and giving a RTK fixed location into AOG, so looking promising, connecting over UDP (Wifi) at the moment until Ethernet support is added.
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Add pressure compensator to the solenoid valve and all problems with the settings will disappear. In my experience, adding compensation completely changes the operation of the solenoids and allows smooth control. It is also easy to calibrate the PWM settings because the system is sensitive to any errors.
Remember that the amount of oil that flows through the valve depends not only on its opening but also on the pressure difference at its ports! By stabilizing this difference you will get a better effect than with PID control.
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Do you have an example of said pressure compensator?
Interesting, exactly how does it get plumbed up? Assuming needs to connect to P, T, and both output lines? Anyone have any photos of it installed ?
Here are the valves I wrote about mounted in my Puma 225 (LS) and MF 5455 (OC)
I installed such sets also in NH T5 and case MX both with OC system.
Are these load sensing OC systems with an LS line still?
Could you list the exact valves your running?
I can’t really see it on your pictures… Does it work like this?
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LS is connected via check valves (blue arrows) directly from the actuator line - ports A B.
Would it be possible to draw a diagram of the entire hydraulic setup?
So you use a 4/3 proportional valve… but I don’t see/understand what the compensation valve actually does inside that block…
Do you know wich lines it is connected to? Is it in between the Pump and the proportional valve and gets “signal” from A and B?
The compensation valve consists of a slider on which, on one hand, pressure from ports A B connected in one line by means of check valves and, on the other hand, pressure from the line between the compensation and proportional valves. In addition, the spring sets the pressure difference. For example, if the input is 160 bar and AB ports 1 bar and the compensation valve is spring-loaded at 8 bar, then there will be 9 bar at the input to the proportional valve.
If there are 100 bars on ports AB and 160 on the input P then 108 bars on the proportional P input.
If the pump is currently supplying 50 bar and the ports A or B have 10 bar, then the proportional input will have 18 bar due to the compensation valve. e.t.c
http://www.atos.com/tables/english/D150.pdf
If anyone needs these valves from ATOS, I can help, I have a good system with them.
I would also like to try a system with 2 antennas but for now I have no idea how to go about it, especially how to connect it to AG.
Update to this project…
I have been trying to get my dual antenna setup up and running, but having alot of problems…
Have spent the last few days fighting a signal loss issue, which turned out to be a USB hub, so note to self / anyone else having similer issues, even with nothing plugged in, by simply having this USB hub plugged into the computer, It was causing all kinds of chaos with my GPS signal!
With that resolved, I went back to a single F9P, no RTK, clean install of AOG, and started bare basics, single USB GPS (F9P), fix to fix 4M, and finally had a fairly stable gps signal / things looking much better. So slowly started adding things again one part at a time, to make sure nothing started a problem.
Long story short, have now got the system up and running again, with UDP connected autosteer board (only option anyway now due to having to use wifi, because cant use the USB hub for any more usb devices!), got my valve set back up, setup NTRIP, F9P gets RTK fix now at 8hz as it should, and the tractor follows the line well, Im finding I have to use higher gain at high speed, and much less gain (9/10 at low speed, 100+ at high speed) but if i make this adjustment, it works very well indeed!
So overall, things are working great, heading is set to 4M fix to fix, which works fairly well, but can still get a bit erratic, and I am sure with working dual antenna, it would be so much more stable.
Moving onto current problems:
1 - Still cant get dual antenna to work, it does “work” but seems to “lag” AOG, steering is slow to respond, and whenever I use this setup, I just get a slow curvy line, constantly steering left, then right, over and over…It seems to me, that when using this, everything slows down…GPS feels laggy, direction change feels slow on screen, position is correct, and heading is correct, so it is “working” but it just feels laggy, andI think this is why its not steering as its to late to respond so AOG just steers to late, and can never get straight… But both F9P’s are set at 8hz, and the ESP is set at Matt / Franz’s recommendations, so im at lost end with that at the moment… Have ordered another ESP32 as wondering if maybe its at fault? Anyone got any thoughts?
2 - Second issue, which I’m hoping maybe someone else can help with, Obviously because I have set the tractor up for Dual antenna, I have antennas to each side (89cm offset to right)…So have to setup the tractor antenna offset in AOG to 89cm. Now the antenna is right of center 89cm, so I should have to enter (as Brian confirmed for me earlier) 89cm… (+), but for some reason I have to enter -89cm for it to be correct, if I use +89cm, when I turn on the end, I am off the line by the offset / double offset…It was confusing me so much, I had to shield an antenna to be 100% sure I hadn’t cocked up / had my antenna cables the wrong way round! But can confirm they are not…
Is anyone else running an offset antenna on here, and if so, are they seeing the same problem?
I have an antenna mounted about 50cm on the right (I have a roof window and in the middle there was no way to hook it) and I use -50 to make it right.
Ok, sounds like thats normal then! Maybe I am miss-reading the offset, is it meant to mean offset of tractor to antenna? IE virtual antenna location?