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Post by torriem on Sept 19, 2020 8:24:23 GMT -6
Interesting. Trimble WAAS on the combines is working pretty well this fall, and Trimble WAAS on the swather also worked fine. I'm sure there are lots of variables including atmospheric conditions that can make WAAS not work so well, especially since in Canada we're quite a ways from the WAAS ground stations.
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Post by Albertabuck on Sept 19, 2020 9:08:15 GMT -6
With my Outback it normally shows it is receiving WAAS from up to 7 satellites, mostly bounces between 6 and 7, occasionally as low as 5. This is about 80 miles north of Edmonton. I only use it for guidance not auto steer and have never once run into an issue of it not working or inaccurate when set to 2 feet of overlap other than driver error. Really only use it for sprayer and fert spreader. I would imagine the more signals it receives the more accurate it would be.
Do some areas have better coverage than others?
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Post by torriem on Sept 19, 2020 11:16:33 GMT -6
Hmm I learn something new every day. A Raven salesman told me that WAAS isn't as accurate up here in Canada because the ground reference stations are all located in the US. That is incorrect. There is one station in Winnipeg. The closest one to me is in Billings, MT. So I guess the accuracy you get is related to how close you are to the nearest ground reference station. Think of it kind of like RTK--it is a similar concept. The ground reference stations measure signal differences, and then that information is transmitted to our GPS receivers via a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, which happens to use the same frequency bands as normal GPS, so receivers need no special radio hardware to pick it up and use to correct.
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Post by meskie on Sept 19, 2020 11:24:16 GMT -6
We have one field that gives any of our gps systems fits if you use them at night. John Deere sf1 Trimble or raven.
Happens to have a cemetery on the corner of it also. Haha
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Post by Beerwiser on Sept 19, 2020 11:58:35 GMT -6
Lol, Meskie. Same problem on a customer's field. Cemetary on the NE corner and about the middle of the field there is a draw and some large rocks with trees. Apparently there is unmarked graves in the trees. 200 feet from those trees I loose all gps signals for about a 100' radius every single time I go in there. Just weird and sort of creepy lol.
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Post by Oatking on Sept 30, 2020 17:55:53 GMT -6
I know we are all super busy at this time of year but just thought I would post a reminder to take your new deere 6000 series receivers off the cab if left in the fields for an extended period. With many older receivers worthless in a few months theft of these 6000s is possible.
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Post by Oatking on Feb 2, 2021 15:36:20 GMT -6
Noticed today my John deere 6000 receiver only showed the waas signal . I have not reprogramed it yet but sf signal is gone. Maybe this has been answered a hundred times but is waas good enough for solid seeding or spraying at 7 mph? Is there a shortage of 6000 receivers out there. I have a few itc s and hate to garbage them.
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Post by torriem on Feb 2, 2021 19:45:05 GMT -6
I think it's good enough for seeding. Not so sure about spraying, probably would work... my cousin sprayed at 120' for a few years with WAAS and lived to tell the tale. Probably you'd want to set it to 119'. But accuracy gets worse the farther north you are. It's okay in southern alberta. Can't speak to farther north.
If you want to do a bit of playing around with a microcontroller and some wiring, I have a small program that will let the green steering system work with WAAS and a brown box monitor.
Definitely get your 6000 updated. The SF1 frequency has changed as of yesterday and the new firmware is required for the 6000 to see it.
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Post by kevlar on Feb 2, 2021 20:23:22 GMT -6
All we ever use is WAAS, not with John Deere though, Trimble and Raven. We seed and spray and never have any issues at all, except the odd time the signal gets weak for a little while, that usually seems to be when seeding, the Raven in our sprayer has never had any hiccups yet.
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Post by iamwill on Feb 2, 2021 20:24:41 GMT -6
I am not an expert either but I think it may vary depending on your system. I have a raven in my sprayer set at 120 with 120 foot booms and have never noticed a miss. Have an old autofarm in my challenger track machine and it works fine for seeding. Also have a Trimble 750 in another challenger fwa tractor and it is useless.
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Post by torriem on Feb 10, 2021 9:53:02 GMT -6
In case any of you didn't see this on the other forum:
This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Not sure what they charge. My own version of this cost about $100 in parts.
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Post by farmersdad on Mar 20, 2021 22:20:39 GMT -6
My son has an ITC directly connected to a brown box receiver (does not connect to his JD 7610). Does this unit still use a CAN bus to communicate with the receiver? Just wondered before cutting wires and using Torriem's fix.
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Post by torriem on Mar 21, 2021 8:10:48 GMT -6
Yes it's connected by CAN still.
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Post by Oatking on Mar 21, 2021 8:54:01 GMT -6
Torriem , sorry to bug you , but where can you buy this connection adaptor locally across western Canada. How much is this adaptor? I also wondered if there was a market for our iTC s receivers in less developed countries. Could farmers in Mexico use this as a cheap entry level auto steer. Is it true the closer to the equator the better waas signal is?
For me Waas might be good enough on my 30 foot Macdon swathers. When Oats or Canola is bumper I dont mind if I enter 28 ft and allow 2 feet over lap or same thing on my 635f header. I dont know if its worth it or not. All I know is I have some real nice dome shaped paper weights in the shop right now.
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Post by torriem on Mar 21, 2021 9:14:06 GMT -6
I'm not selling or making any adapters. All I posted was some code for the Teensy 4 microcontroller so folks can DIY it for about $100. Folks wanting a ready-made module can get them from Agra-GPS, a farm-owned company out of Stettler, AB. He's charging about $450 USD for a complete, weather-proof module, that plugs into the harness between the globe and the tractor. His module was developed completely independently of anything I did. WAAS is available in most parts of North America, including Mexico. I don't think there's anything in South America. Europe has their own EGNOS system which does the same thing. Apparently there is a system in India, and one in Japan (see my following post). Australia is in the process of building one, but won't be activated for at least another year from what I've read. The original and on-going purpose of these systems is primarily for aircraft, to allow GPS-guided instrument landing at runways that don't have ILS localizer transmitters installed. I agree these obsolete domes can still be useful for swathing if you had a john deere monitor lying around and had the ATU system to mount. The ATU and the monitors are expensive on their own. If you're starting from scratch, the Trimble EZ Steer systems with WAAS come on sale for around $5000 CAD from time to time and have everything you need to steer a swather. We added that last year and I am not sure how I ever lived without it before. Swathing is so much easier on the body when I'm not hunched over the steering wheel. For DIYers, recently a guy posted about successfully rolling his own AgOpenGPS on a swather, which was pretty cool. AOG is really designed for conventional steering machines, so no one was really sure how it would work with the kind of steering a swather uses. |
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