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Wired has published a long article about how the farming equipment manufacturer John Deere has just swindled farmers out of their right to repair their own equipment. Basically the manufacturer was allowed to write the agreement governing access to the firmware embedded in the farming equipment.
Farmers have been some of the strongest allies in the ongoing battle to make it easier for everyone to fix their electronics. This week, though, a powerful organization that's supposed to lobby on behalf of farmers in California has sold them out by reaching a watered-down agreement that will allow companies like John Deere to further cement their repair monopolies.
Farmers around the country have been hacking their way past the software locks that John Deere and other manufacturers put on tractors and other farm equipment, and the Farm Bureau lobbying organization has thus far been one of the most powerful to put its weight behind right to repair legislation, which would require manufacturers to sell repair parts, make diagnostic tools and repair information available to the public, and would require manufacturers to provide a way to get around proprietary software locks that are designed to prevent repair.
Motherboard also covered the topic about how farmer lobbyists sold out their farmers and helped enshrine John Deere's maintenance monopoly.
Earlier on SN:
The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California (2018)
Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law (2017)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
Jailbreak your Tractor or Make it Run OSS? (2015)
(Score: 5, Informative) by dwilson on Friday September 21 2018, @03:49PM
My own experience directly contradicts that statement, at least as far as hitches and such go. I'll agree that within each piece of equipment, vendor lock-in has reached criminal levels. Anecdotal horror story: One fellow here has two newer JD tractors, same model. He had a breakdown this spring while seeding, the tractor wouldn't even start. Had to get the field mechanic out from the local dealership. Mechanic plugged in his laptop and traced the problem to some little module tucked away near the engine. JD wanted $1200 for a replacement! My neighbour said screw that, I'll grab the one off my other tractor. He did that himself, and found the tractor still wouldn't start. It's computer refused to accept the new module until the switch had been blessed by the mechanic's laptop. Of course the mechanic was gone by that point... He swapped the modules back and brought the other tractor out, too angry to deal with JD. He ended up getting the mechanic back out later on to fix the other tractor though, and bought the new module as well. Both were still under warranty, but somehow he still got charged labour.
But as far as hitches and the like...
Lots of farmers around here have newer (post-2010) combine harvesters. Case IH / New Holland's (Both CNH Industrial brands so not very dissimilar), John Deere, even a few modern AGCO Massey-Ferguson's. But most of them aren't running with headers made by the same company. The most popular header seems to be MacDon [macdon.com]. They sell adapters to fit them on just about any combine model you can name. Shelbourne Stripper headers [shelbourne.com] are also popular. I've seen John Deere-green headers on Case IH combines, too. Mechanical, Hydraulic, and Electrical, they can be made fully compatible.
As for tractors and towed implements, there's even less lock-in as far as the hitch goes. I'd call it zero lock-in, myself. The big [versatile-ag.com] 4WD [caseih.com] tractors [deere.com] (what most people think of when they hear "farm" and "tractor") use a simple drawbar and a fairly girthy pin. I've never encountered a drawbar/pin incompatibility, except in cases of size. If the implement's tow hitch is too big for your tractor, you need a bigger tractor, manufacturer doesn't enter in to it. If you farmerize it so it can be hooked up anyway, you generally find you don't have the horsepower to pull it properly anyway.
The hydraulic hose connections are generally not the same, and may be what you were referring to with hitch lock-in, but hoses are generally NPT or JIC on the ends, and the connectors are changeable, for between $20 to $60 an end. Most farms standardize on whatever end types they have the most of to start with. It's an expense, but a small upfront one that isn't repeated. Pioneer [parker.com] seems to be the most popular around here by far, probably because they're cheaper and you can pick them up from hundreds of stores. No one likes paying vendor mark-up at the dealership, John Deere or otherwise. For those hoses without changeable ends, you take the hose off and get a replacement built, or get an adapter hose built, usually for under $100. Again, one-time expense.
As for electronics and sensors on the implements, I've yet to see a tractor and implement from the same company have built-in compatibility. When you buy an implement (say a drill seeder), it comes with an electronic box you mount in the cab of the tractor, tie in to power, and run a cable to the hitch to hook up the implement. Our steiger has three such boxes mounted in it, one for the seeder, one for the sprayer, and one for an older seeder I haven't got round to ripping out yet. Maybe now you can stick to one company for everything and keep one super-module in the cab to run it all and share the cable, but it is by no means required and I've never seen the like.
I can't think of one farm that runs all-JD or all-anything equipment. Everyone mixes and matches. This stuff is made to work together.
- D