I have had success with a land rover type WAS, from an ebay listing that seems long gone unfortunatly. In a moment of forethought, I thought it smart to order a spare, as it seemed like the most fragile part of a steering system, and missing a week of good farming weather over a $50 part is never fun.
It has unfortunately lead me down the rabbit hole of land rover style ride height sensors! It seems there is at least 2 different body styles, and 3 different arm lengths! I have attached some photos of the various ones I have ordered as spares, many of which arent very useful to me, especially the shorter armed ones.
Does anyone know where I can source one that has the longer style arm, but the thinner housing that can be screwed in from the back side of it? That is what I currently use but cant seem to replace.
All of these were sold as Disco 2 rear ride height sensors, I am more of a Land Cruiser person so not familiar with anything Land Rover at all, so any advice welcome.
I have looked at it, not sure I can package it safely on this tractor. But still doesnt fix the issue of a lack of consistency when ordering the LR product, would hate to be ordering them to put into a car as half probably dont fit!
Yes, they all output the same voltage from the same angle, as best as I can tell. The different arm lengths just make it difficult to use them when they dont fit right away where the other length ones fit!
There are 2 different ride height sensors in a Landrover, one for the level of the car itself and one for the headlights. The last ones can be mounted at the front or at the rear axel of the car. A quick search shows there are at least a few types of those , depending on what car they 're fitted. That might explain your extensive collection so far. If you have a type that suits you, try to find the o.e m # of that type and make sure you compare that to the one you’re about to order.
Yesterday, I’ve seen a good tip on a chinese Autopilot. Instead of a sensor like ours (a variable resistor) that one uses an IMU located in the same place. I mean, on the turning front wheel.
Why don’t we change to that technology? It couldn’t be much expensive and seems to be tougher
“Our” sensors are not variable resistors! A variable resistor is one option but many other sensor types are 100% compatible with the existing code and HW.
Even the popular Land Rover suspension sensor is not a variable resistor type but a hall sensor. With the linkage arms this one is sensitive though but there are hall sensors without any arms, just sitting on top of the king pin. Most OEM sensors are built like this and again, 100% compatible with the existing AgOpenGPS code and HW. These are just a bit more complicated to install compared to the OEM type.
Personally I cannot see any interest avoiding a proper, traditional type WAS except for vehicles that do not have steer wheels. I wonder a gyro as a WAS works for these vehicles any better than the “WASless” approach that uses the standard heading gyro only (like some early, cheap autosteer retrofit kits).
