Right to Repair

Noticed this on You Tube: https://youtu.be/F8JCh0owT4w

With the technology currently being developed, manned equippment may become a thing of the past but the video makes you wonder how many tractors being produced today will be in the fields 50 years from now should the owner be so inclined. I.E. in comparison to those still running 4020s in thier operation today.....

Pretty hard to stop a guy with skills & a lathe / fabrication equipment from building tools to repair a tractor but significantly easier to impede the jobber repair shop or DIY'er by locking down the computer control systems.

Food for thought....
 
I for see people like me and others on here re-working electronic nite mares to "non-electronic" systems in the future,, I think the tractor /combine company's should offer a non- electronic basic machine and let the owners make the choice...I can not even imagine the extra cost imposed on these new units..
 
Like most manufacturing plants, some of the large dairy farms with robotic milkers have had to hire full time controls technicians/programmers to keep their new technology running. That is an added expense, but still works out well for them. A generation ago who would have thought dairy farms would need either a programmer or a controls technician? A full time controls technician is probably the future for most farm repair shops too. It works to cross train some employees but you still need someone who can handle the more complex problems.
 
IIRC, some of the issue is related to fuel economy and emission's; regulations (more often rediculous than genuinely helpful IMO ) have required the manufacturers to go so heavy into electronics, not that their greed isn't fully in play here too.
PERHAPS, the first piece of the puzzle lies in the EPA and its morass of frustrating regulations ??
All this simply as a conversation element.

Bob
 

I heard that one of the reasons Deere began consolidating dealers a few years back, and continuing today until there will be a few "mega dealers" is they want to consolidate and control the computer based maintenance. Basically locking everyone out.
 
That's my thought's as well. Once the warranty is out and it's paid for the old guy's who never learned can't will come in mighty handy.
 

Already seeing the issue with John Deere combines. It used to be that if your corner post mother-board died on a 50 or 60 series you could install a new one and manually program it.

Now the replacement board for those series has to be dealer-programmed and the info is down-loaded from Deere and company. That wouldn't bother me too much except Deere techs and Deere itself ain't very good at it! It took a nearby dealership three or four tries to get a corner post controller to accept a download on one of my customer's 9650 combine. He was out a combine for about 4 days when he needed it.

The strange thing is that while Deere replaced the older series mother board with the newer board...they still send the old style destructions to manually program it!

John Deere engineering these days ain't what it's cracked-up to be. Factory support is marginalized from what it's been in the past.
 
Glad I'm 60 and family is raised. Hear story's of $20/$30,000+ repair bills on some of this new stuff and think if farmers want to buy this stuff more power to them. First STUPID move was building diesel engines that you have to "dump" fertilizer in to control emissions. Time for my nap and later rebuild on a high tech 2630 reverser.lol
 
I think it's interesting that this kind of thing isn't really tolerated in the automotive industry. Too many repair shops, car owners, aftermarket, and competing manufacturers. JD must be thinking, What's a handful of dirtbag farmers gonna do?

My wife bought a $30 unit that plugs into her Mini, allowing wireless communication with a code-reader phone app.

This doesn't have anything to do with EPA. She can't mess with the emissions, but she can hack things like turning on the driving lights with high beams. She'd probably have to go to the dealer to reflash something, but we haven't had that kind of failure yet.

Bottom line: aftermarket code readers work swell with cars and trucks. Why not tractors?
 
There is a bit more to it than just a code reader,, when ever you need to change certain components you must delete the one you took off and enter the number off the one you install or the tractor/ combine will not accept it..
 
Thanks. I left the farm a long time ago and obviously don't know what I'm talking about. (My grandpa strictly forbade me from becoming a farmer like him.) I caught wind of this controversy a few years ago and just trying to understand it.

So there's diagnostics and maintenance repair, which I saw as akin to cars. In early days, on-board diagnostics was very proprietary. (I'm old enough to remember getting my distributor "scoped", just before on-board diagnostics cropped up.) I understand that these diagnostics aren't proprietary now only because of government regulation. But maybe market forces would've worked, like folks choosing more open systems so they could afford to repair/maintain it. (My 1994 Range Rover has proprietary on-board diagnostics, but at least I can look under the passenger's seat and see a number flashing, and then look it up to see what's wrong. Generally.)

Then there's upgrades and new components. Easy to understand the computer industry getting exercised. I remember that this was even more proprietary than it is now, 25 years ago or so. Plug-n-play only came about when lots of folks started customizing their desktops, especially with aftermarket components.

I still think it's a too-big company (JD) with too few consumers and not a lot of competition. Seems like it'll take either regulation or market forces (some JD competitor that's more open, stealing business). I'd wager on the former -- even if this crowd isn't much into regulation.

I grew up on a family farm. I've always mistrusted "big agri-business". I truly feel sorry for those of you who's livelihood is screwed by it.
 
This is a long video but I found it interesting. I have a unique window into this world as I am a farmer's son and currently a control system programmer and I have worked on "mobile equipment safety" controllers.

https://youtu.be/5McyyI41UcY
 
(quoted from post at 20:49:50 02/07/18) There is a bit more to it than just a code reader,, when ever you need to change certain components you must delete the one you took off and enter the number off the one you install or the tractor/ combine will not accept it..

Tim I hope they dont try to lock guys like you out. I have gotten far better info from you on this forum than from my local dealer. BTW I dont know if you remember me asking you about my brakes chattering but I couldnt find someone to haul the 4440 to you for something reasonable so had to go with a local guy who replaced em for me. Thanks again for all your tips! Your a real asset to this place.
 

Deere isn't the only one trying to do this. CHN has all proprietary software in all their machines for a while now also. I know Cat, Kubota, and Bobcat are similar. I assume Komatsu and most other off road equipment manufacturers are the same...
 
CHN does have propierty software but our local dealer is more than happy to help the equipment owner diagnose a problem. And they will do it
at no charge. I believe CNH does the same thing.
 

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