from the dawn-of-year-of-linux-on-the-tractor dept.
Wired is running a piece about the effect of DMCA on farmers. If you think Phantom drones not flying near the White House due to a firmware upgrade is bad or jailbreaking your phone is a hassle, what would you think if your farming tractor, the one you paid some $100,000 for, does the same? Because it does!
Says Kyle Wiens:
...Over my left shoulder a massive John Deere tractor loomed. I came here to fix that tractor. So far, things weren’t going as planned.
I’m a computer programmer by training, and a repairman by trade. Ten years ago, I started iFixit, an online, DIY community that teaches people to repair what they own. Repair is what I do, and that I was being rebuffed by a tractor was incredibly frustrating.
The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two days, Dave’s tractor lies fallow. And so do his fields.
...fixing Dave’s sensor problem required fiddling around in the tractor’s highly proprietary computer system—the tractor’s engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast.
[More after the break.]
The problem is that farmers are essentially driving around a giant black box outfitted with harvesting blades. Only manufacturers have the keys to those boxes. Different connectors are needed from brand to brand, sometimes even from model to model—just to talk to the tECU. Modifications and troubleshooting require diagnostic software that farmers can’t have. Even if a farmer managed to get the right software, calibrations to the tECU sometimes require a factory password. No password, no changes—not without the permission of the manufacturer.
... found out that farmers aren’t taking the limitations lying down. There’s a thriving grey-market for diagnostic equipment and proprietary connectors. Some farmers have even managed to get their hands on the software they need to re-calibrate and repair equipment on their own—a laptop purchased from some nameless friend-of-a-friend with the software already loaded on it. There are even ways to get around the factory passwords that block access to the tECU to effect repairs.
[...]the Digital Millennium Copyright Act—a 1998 copyright law designed to prevent digital piracy—classifies breaking a technological protection measure over a device’s programming as a breach of copyright. So, it’s entirely possible that changing the engine timing on his own tractor makes a farmer a criminal.
Instead of wrestling with proprietary systems, other farmers are starting to go open source. Dorn Cox has been working the land most of his life. After a break to work in tech start-ups, he took over a 250-acre farm in Lee, New Hampshire. In 2010, he co-founded Farm Hack, an online community of farmers, designers, developers, and engineers “helping our community of farmers to be better inventors, developing tools that fit the scale and their ethics of our sustainable family farms.”
Related Stories
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)
EFF runs a piece on the ownership of one's electronic devices, in this case the popular Phantom drones (one of which crashed into the White House yard last week):
As the White House reacted to the drone crash with a call for more regulation, the manufacturer of the downed quadcopter announced it would push a firmware update to all its units in the field, permanently preventing those drones from taking off or flying within 25km of downtown Washington DC.
Now, while TFA goes on and on with the various examples on "Who Really Owns Your Drones?", I stopped at the thought of: "Actually, what exactly is the problem the Phantom model's manufacturer is trying to solve? And why it feels compelled to do it?"
Last year dozens of 'Right to Repair' bills were introduced throughout the US, but defeated. Maybe this time its time has come.
Right to Repair bills, designed to foster competition in the repair industry, require manufacturers to allow repair, and even provide manuals, diagnosic software, and parts. Manufacturers oppose these laws as it can cost them more to address devices repaired by third parties, because repairs are a source of revenue, and because repaired items are less likely to be replaced with new ones.
[O]ne of the most effective anti-repair tactics is to spread FUD about the supposed security risks of independent repairs.
Without a concerted and coordinated effort to counteract this tactic, legislators receive primarily well-heeled opposing views, and vote accordingly.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:24AM
There's a simple solution: don't 'buy' from manufacturers that implement that sort of control. You see it in all sorts of fields, even down to one cup coffee makers these days. Manufacturers try to lock you into their products and services for one of two reasons: greed, or the inability to compete fairly (which really, is still just greed). The more people that stop rewarding that sort of behaviour, the better off we'll all be.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:26AM
Yep, if you read the TFA they say farmers are avoiding the new fangled stuff for older, but serviceable, stuff.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:36AM
With a little love now and then almost any tractor will last forever. Instead Farmers leave them in the fields to rust when they move to bigger and "better" models.
Given an engine overhaul, even a 30 year old tractor will still work for someone. They are built like tanks.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by LancePodstrong on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:43AM
When the price of a new piece of equipment is over a million dollars, no farmer is buying a new model "just because." These new units drive themselves by GPS, monitor soil conditions and apply correct amounts of fertilizer accordingly, and can avoid double planting an area when it has to be driven over twice to make a pass around a field. They can also plant 50 foot wide rows across terrain too rugged for older, smaller tractors. These million dollar machines pay for themselves with increased productivity. I grew up growing corn, wheat, sunflowers, sorghum, millet. The industry is not the same as it was even ten years ago.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by morgauxo on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:34AM
Yup, sounds like something that would be encumbered by software patents.... unfortunately.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @08:57AM
A tractor doesn't do any of those things. It just pulls. You could use a team of oxen and pull the equipment that does.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Walzmyn on Monday February 09 2015, @01:44AM
A team of oxen with a GPS, self steering and a hydrolic system to pick up implements that way in the tons?
Sorry, but an Ox team is not a replacement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @05:21AM
So ... are these machines responsible for crop circles too? They sure seem sophisticated enough.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:40AM
Similar to X as a subscription. Not only do you get the sale but like a junkie you keep em hooked on your service.
Truck makers in Europe were forced to implement ODB2 but in the USA, it was only recently that manufactures were forced to switch to ODB2. It used to be if your truck had a problem you pretty much knew what it was from looking at your gauges or other symptoms. You popped the hood, grabbed your tools and went to work. Before ODB2, if you don't have the $6k+ factory diagnostic equipment, which is just a laptop with some software and a friggen cable, then you're SOL.
(Score: 2) by LancePodstrong on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:45AM
If 1996 counts as "only recently."
(Score: 5, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:08AM
You are thinking about cars a.k.a. passenger vehicles. Heavy trucks built before 2010 were not subject to that requirement. Think Mack, Peterbilt, Freightliner, etc. http://www.epa.gov/obd/regtech/heavy.htm [epa.gov]
(Score: 2) by LancePodstrong on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:39AM
Oh, interesting. Thanks.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Sunday February 08 2015, @10:39PM
Mid-sized trucks and vans (think Ford E-250) weren't required until 2007.
My company owns a 2006 E-250 Cargo van, and even though it has an ODB2, because it wasn't required before 2007, the emissions testing in Maryland can't use it.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:15AM
What pisses me off is that the OBD2 was supposed to be a *standard*.
There's nothing special about a reader. Google "ELM327" and you will see more generic OBD2 readers than you can shake a stick at.
I would like to see the farmers "wise up" and start "doing business like a business" and present the sales rep for the tractor some form containing legal crap such as " tractor will use standard or published OBD2 codes. Use of nonstandard codes confers all rights to reverse-engineer and/or disseminate any information regarding such codes. Manufacturer agrees to accept all costs of reverse engineering." and present these to salesman as he flourishes pen for the farmer's signature on the sale contract - then have the farmer keep badgering the sales rep as to why he is holding up the sale? All he has to do to "close the sale" today is just sign on the dotted line...
I can tell you one thing... business cannot take it if others start doing business like a business does business.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:46AM
That would be nice, sure, but let's be very honest here. It would only be of interest and benefit to a very small number of farmers out of an already very small number of people total. The machines themselves are simply tools to accomplish a goal, which is to farm such that costs are minimal, given the prices that we're offered. But there are some nerdy farmers out there who are working to open up ag machine computer systems. I recently learned about ISOBlue, an open source project to develop a little Beagle Bone device that listens on the Tractor's canbus and transmits the info over bluetooth to another device like a phone, tablet, or laptop. This if both for hacking purposes, and also for other purposes like data collection. Every machine on the market today has built-in data mapping. As you drive along it collects real-time positioning information. Combine this with on-board yield monitoring and you can see all kinds of neat things. But usually it's locked up in a proprietary, windows-only analysis app. With ISOBlue, one could build a whole host of tablet apps to record all this information in an open way. Load it straight into QGIS, etc. It's really a good example of routing around the damage (the proprietary data collection system) that I was talking about in my other post. And once the buses are completely decoded, we can do even more interesting things like controlling hydraulic remotes via the bus from a beablebone, etc.
Though I predict that in cars and tractors, the canbus is soon going to be all encrypted, and only signed, blessed devices will be able to listen and speak on the bus. Every time I read another car hacking article on slashdot or soylent I cringe because you know this is where things are heading. A legitimate security concern becomes a completely walled garden. A dream for manufacturers.
When it comes to machines and even cars, ultimately they are physical machines, and despite all the electronics, if you have a basic understanding of mechanics and physics, you can hack them. It's not like the internals are completely hidden. Given enough wrenches you can expose them. And you can do a certain amount of modifications. And there is the analog hole. If the canbus won't let me interface with steering, throttle, brakes, etc, I can always interface with the cab controls mechanically.
Don't get me wrong. Computers in agriculture, particularly the large, incumbent companies, are ripe for disruption. Low-cost RTK GPS corrections would be a good start. Having anyone's tractor be able to interface with anyone's navigator, interfacing with anyone's GPS receiver would be even better.
An aside and off topic here perhaps, but I've been thinking that with agriculture heading for some serious crises in terms of simply finding people willing to be farmers, that the kind of intelligent computer folk we often hear from on this site, and even the other site, should be ideal candidates to convince to get into farming. Computers and agriculture are just such a good mix. So many nerdy things a farmer can get into.
And maybe on a very small scale this idea would be true. But unfortunately farming has become extremely expensive to get into. Acquiring land and machines is just impossible for someone wanting to get into the business (and by business I mean just that, not a garden operation), given the margins. A gentleman once told me how much he respected farmers for the amount of work they do willingly all the time just to make things go, and how he just wouldn't be able to do that and have that kind of commitment. He said, "you couldn't pay me 10 million dollars to farm." I looked him back and said, "yeah that would be a nice start, but you'll need a lot more than that." Our farm was built from mere homesteading nearly 90 years ago into what it is today. We make decent money but I wanted to get rich I can think of several better ways of doing it, such as writing the next angry birds. I don't know what the solution is. Large-scale corporate farms are not the only answer. There's got to be a middle ground. But even coming up with land is difficult these days.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday February 08 2015, @10:26AM
I appreciate your reply, caseih. You bring up some excellent points.
I would not be so vehement against "digital rights" if I knew they would not be abused, but its been my observation that greed will win over. One party will be made slave to the other through enforced ignorance, the same thing that encouraged white landowners to withhold education from the slaves. I do not want to see that happen again.
You stated a fear of mine. Stuff like encrypted CAN bus. All these suited-and-tied handshakers buzzing around Washington having law passed that enforces ignorance on our part so we have to kowtow to whatever the guy with the "rights" demands. I am fighting for a free society so that if someone wants to shanghai another over some service, those services will be fungible and not monopolized through artificial monopolies sustained only by legislation. No one should be dependent on someone else that way.
As a farmer, you know how easy it is for the consumer to buy corn from you or someone else. It is my desire to see tractor service the same way - I believe it should be public knowledge how our infrastructure works and no-one have the right to a legislated monopolies masquerading as "rights". I believe you should have your selection of many people who compete for your business, not someone who enjoys the right to tell you "Its *my* way or the highway". Yet we have Congressmen rapidly making this kind of scenario a reality.
I feel it is high time we tossed a lot of Congressmen and the law they passed out on their ear. None of us should have to put up with this kind of monopoly. It goes against everything I understood about free enterprise.
Just reading this story has got me wondering what I could do to make engine controllers with the microprocessor skills I have. A brand new device I have never seen the likes of is now available, quite cheap too. Its from Parallax and called a "propeller" chip. It has a very unusual architecture that looks ideal for building engine controllers. These things have eight cores running in parallel; each core dedicated to a single task, yet they run on very low power. I want to get away from this proprietary stuff - dealing with it to me is like dealing with a bunch of foreigners speaking some language I do not know and only telling me what they want me to hear.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:26PM
Thanks for you comment. Definitely I think people with skills like you have can and should get involved with agriculture technology to the extent you can. Certainly if we could get enough young interested farmers (many who are interested in computers) connected with engineers willing to do cool open source things, it could get very exciting indeed. I get excited about a lot of these ideas but I don't have enough time to devote to any of single one of them. People like you could help, but you would need to spend some time with the farmers. For example, I think an open source pivot irrigation control system would be just wonderful, but you have to understand how pivots work, and what kinds of things the farmer would want to be able to do with them. It's sometimes a bit frustrating to me that I'm fairly isolated here. I have an computer programming background, worked in IT, play with electronics, but I'm just one guy and I don't know of any local farmers with that skill set that I could collaborate with. Even now I'm about to start the spring preparation rush. I suppose the most important thing I could do right now would be to write down all the little ideas I get as I'm working. Then maybe collaboration could be sought.
I suppose part of the problem is the farmers themselves. To survive, the push is to go bigger. Larger machines, more automation, more reliance on products from fewer and fewer companies. And the integrated agronomics packages offered by the big chemical companies is extremely attractive at first. What I mean is specially bred crops (sometimes GMO, sometims not) that are designed to work with specific, patented herbicides. This has serious long-term consequences of locking farmers (and consumers) into certain companies.
Definite
(Score: 3, Informative) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:33PM
Rereading your post, I think you're definitely correct. We do need open-source firmwares for engine controls. I see no reason why the EPA would ever have a problem with someone releasing their code that helps them meet EPA standards.
The only other problem I see is that EPA regulations have led to regulatory capture. In other words much of the pollution control technology (much of which is controlled by the ECU but is external to the engine itself) is highly patented. We're talking about the layout of the turbo chargers, the gates controlling exhaust gas recirculation, and the injection of urea into the exhaust to catalyze the NOx that is all patented and cross-licensed. Sigh. I'm afraid this is just going to reinforce your original fears. Yes we are headed for some serious problems that maybe only a revolution is going to fix.
It's a complicated world, isn't it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday February 09 2015, @08:44AM
Exactly!
It seems to me this digital lock thing has gone way too far into obstructing other's rights to repair, optimize, or customize their off-the-shelf purchase for their individual needs.
All this "digital rights" smacks to me of a meal I am prohibited by law from seasoning or buying lumber I am not allowed to cut.
I took quite some time going through the links on FarmHack. This stuff sounds like it would be very meaningful use of my time... like you say, I would have to become quite intimate with the needs of the community to insure I produce something useful.
I already have a supply of customized ( industrialized ) Arduino-compatible boards I have designed and have had PCB's made. They use the OptiBoot bootloader, so I need no special hardware, other than a generic serial download cable to do anything. I can even use one of my boards to download the bootloader into virgin ATMEL328 chips mounted into a freshly assembled board - which then makes the second board Arduino compatible ( thanks to Bill Westfield for that ). Once I saw what Bill had done with his code, I designed the SPI port on mine to be reversible so it would become an inlet for programming the bootloader. Because of the very low power consumption of these boards ( ATMEL chips have an extremely low power sleep mode ), these look great for field deployments. Not only that, its easy to get solar cells now, and there are abundances of lithium ion cells, charger chips, and boost/buck chips available, so I can put these where electrical power is not available.
You sure are tempting me to move back into the country! I would have to find somewhere there is enough interest to support me though, as to be frank, although both of my grandparents were farmers, neither of my parents were, and I am as dumb as a bag of rocks if I actually had to grow anything. One thing I did know though is both of my grandparents were about the most intelligent, resilient, and resourceful people I have ever known - and I think Dad coaxed me into engineering because he knew how fascinated I was with all that machinery gramps had. I studied all this computer stuff, mostly robotics related, to work in aerospace for a while, but now I find myself where I can design damned near anything but all I can find employment doing has nothing to do with my passion of electronics.... I am an analog/power hardware guy with a good feel for thermodynamics ( refrigeration ) and C++/Assembler and do not care a thing for all these office and presentation programs. As far as I am concerned, I know enough about HTML and TCP/IP on the primitive level ( Jeremy Bentham's "TCP/IP Lean" ) that I can get an Arduino up, serve up a web page, and transfer data. Most of my TCP/IP was debugging things with WireShark. Most everything I ever did fits in one packet anyway - unless I was sending or receiving a file. I was just sending a bunch of readings and had to get them from one place to another and the internet protocols offered a handy way to send it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LancePodstrong on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:07PM
I grew up growing grain but haven't been directly involved in the industry since my dad stopped 15 years ago. I'm back in agriculture now, but on the berry side of things. It's a lot of fun and very rewarding, but there's not as much computer stuff there. Raspberries and such are mostly manual labor. There's plenty of grain being grown around me, mostly corn and soybeans here in southeastern Minnesota. If I wanted to educate myself to prepare for involvement in the technology side of the grain industry, where would you recommend I start? To what degree is formal education necessary?
Thanks for your time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:04PM
I'm probably not answering your question very well, but here goes. If you want to ask me anything specific, certainly feel free. If you want to email let me know.
I think really all that's necessary ultimately is a curious mind. Most farmers are not computer nerds. So despite the proliferation of computer technology, it is possible to simply use it without any special computer knowledge. One simply clicks on the right buttons to mark a compass path, set the width of the machine, and then you start driving and press a button to enable automatic steering. At the end of your row, take over and turn (lift up the implement, etc), then resume the automatic steering. It's actually such a natural integration that I hardly can comprehend being without it. Interestingly, auto steering actually improves my watchfulness and carefulness because I'm free to keep an eye on the implement, rather than just steering.
As far as doing something with the data collected from farm machinery, that involves a bit of understanding of what GIS (geographic information systems) is. It's very interesting to look at yield maps, for example. But honestly even the scientists are still not sure where to take the data. If I know the yield across the field, then what? How can I use that to my advantage the following year? No one is quite sure. Some farmers would look for areas of high yields, and try to boost the yields even more there, knowing that the fertility is excellent in those areas. Others would try to boost fertilizer in the poor areas to make them perform. Now with UAVs to do imagery, things are getting even more interesting, though we still aren't sure just what the data is telling us.
In general, I'd say anyone getting into farming should be comfortable with computers. They are invaluable planning tools. Probably the most important thing a farmer has to know is what are the costs of production compared with the expected revenue. My father has been farming with a spreadsheet for since 1981. He first saw VisicCalc and immediately saw how he could use it for doing complex planning. Since then he has tracked everything pertaining to crop inputs, so we know exactly how much everything costs. When planning crop rotations we can compare exactly how each crop fairs against the other. Whether you're growing berries or wheat I believe this sort of planning and tracking is essential.
As far as formal education goes, I feel a formal education is always a good thing. If anything it teaches one to think critically, and how to bring intellectual tools to bear on a problem. But that doesn't mean you have to get a degree in agriculture, or even computers. However, a good math background is essential for farming I feel. Basic algebra is often used, particularly solving direct and inverse ratios. For example, if I want to apply 35 actual pounds per acre of phosphate, and I get it in the form 11-52-0 (52% Phos by weight), how much total product do I need to apply for each acre? I have to do rate calculations and total product calculations all the time.
One last thing I thought of is that farming is a business, so some formal training in business principles is probably a good idea. One has to understand how the markets work (futures, options, etc). In the old days farmers would listen to market reports on the radio. Now we do with smart phone apps, and automatic email alerts.
(Score: 2) by LancePodstrong on Monday February 09 2015, @02:59PM
Awesome, thanks for the info. :)
(Score: 5, Informative) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:26AM
That's easy for you to say, but come visit my farm sometime. For one it's simply not legal to manufacture and sell a commercial ag diesel engine that doesn't meet EPA pollution regulations. And meeting these regs is in large part due to the tuning of the ECU. Thus to modify the ECU can bring on severe penalties from the government itself.
But even more important, my primary goal is to raise crops that I can sell and minimize my inputs and expenses while trying to stay in the black (I was going to say maximize my profits, but honestly we're price takers so it's really about minimizing costs). I don't have the money to hire dozens of laborers with all the personal injury risks to do the work of one big, computer-guided machine. Our biggest machine is 120' wide and covers roughly 100 acres an hour. There's no way I can drive that manually without a fair amount of overlap and wasting of fuel and other resources like seed, fertilizer, or herbicides. So it's a crappy situation, but it's not quite as bad as the article makes out. There is a tremendous amount of utility in the new systems, and the manufacturers are keen to capitalize on it.
In the end, though a machine is still a machine. Most of it is inherently hackable. I can weld up and attach new implements, I can make physical repairs, etc. Despite the electronics, most farm problems are mechanical, and still accessible. And being that the end result is control of a physical machine, the damage caused by short-sighted thinking in terms of proprietary electronics can be routed around. If I can't figure out the canbus codes to implement GPS auto steering, I can just replace the entire steering unit with one I can control (in fact someone did this with arduino and a laptop: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=8436.0). [arduino.cc] Really the only things that are off limits without a lot of hacking are the engine ECU and, if equipped, the transmissions's ECU. They are more and more integrated now, with computer-controlled CVTs automatically throttling the engine on demand, but there's still a lot of room for hacking, should a farmer feel inclined (and honestly most farmers are not computer hackers, sadly, even though it's a great mix of skills). In fact I could even build a robot pedal pusher, lever mover, and steering-wheel turner and do all sorts of cool things.
A much longer bit I wrote on the subject of computers and farm machines I posted on that other site some days ago:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=6916705&cid=48998153, [slashdot.org] and subsequent replies from others, if you're interested.
tl;dr, the proprietary computer problem is much more serious in terms of data analysis, and even plant genetics than it is the tractor's onboard computer itself.
(Score: 4, Informative) by kaszz on Sunday February 08 2015, @12:59PM
Can't one just add one's own RTK-GPS which one then can download or realtime extract GPS data from? steering could be done using actuators if one needs to go the lowlevel route?
(Eliminating the whole John Deere, QGIS, SHAPE mess in one go)
Perhaps a physical bus in parallel could be used?
(route around)
Perhaps one should pool resources?
Neat project: arduino.cc: Steering a combine via GPS [arduino.cc]
And a nice project: opensourceecology.org [opensourceecology.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by caseih on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:16PM
Short answer is no, not easily with any Case New Holland or John Deere system. They will only take input for guidance from their own brand of receivers. On John Deere, GPS message go over canbus to the guidance computer. There was a company that figured out how to spoof the messages and they sell a much cheaper receiver with RTK that the guidance computer thinks is a normal Deere GPS receiver. John Deere of course sued them. I'm not sure what the outcome was. CNH uses Trimble, and Trimble's guidance computer only will talk to a Trimble receiver, thought apparently it's not via canbus but by a serial link. So this one might be more easily spoofed. If Piksi ever gets their RTK GPS system to market, I would be willing to try that with my CNH machines.
One can of course use a completely third-party system (guidance computer, GPS, and steering valve). There may be third-party GPS nav and guidance systems that will accept input from any receiver. But to use those requires replacing the tractor's hydraulic steering valve with one that is controllable by the third-party nav system (neither Deere nor CNH alls third parties to communicate with the native steering valve on canbus), and provides their own guidance computers. I have neighbors that love the AutoFarm system and all their new machines get the valve switched over (all brands and colors). Third-party systems means another computer screen in the cab besides the tractor's normal one, and sometimes the user control integration isn't as good (may or may not use the tractor's built-in button to enable steering). So for now I prefer the native Deere and CNH systems.
Note that in the project you linked to (which I also linked in another reply) he installed his own steering valve as well. So despite all the lockdown, if you physically replace the parts you can't have access to, you can always get access another way. Nothing is more hackable than a large, physical machine.
If cheap RTK GPS becomes a reality (Piksi is not looking like it would fit my needs), I will definitely consider switching to a third-party system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @06:31AM
They don't tell you these things when you want to buy it, just like they don't tell you about the "WE OWN YOUR SOUL" license agreement that is required for your shiny software-in-a-box to operate.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday February 08 2015, @01:07PM
Buyers that skip on the due diligence will always be screwed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @09:48PM
Not everyone has the time to be an expert on everything, and most of those who consider themselves experts on everything are little more than self-deceived.
(Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Sunday February 08 2015, @12:45PM
so, they are back to a horse and plow ? ? ? (plough, for you limeys)
knowing nothing of the situation directly, i am presuming that it would be like saying "if you don't want seatbelts, don't buy a car from those manufacturers...'; in other words, they ALL do it, i'm betting, so there is effectively NO alternative...
further, the experiment they describe, um, sounds like US ! ! !
we're all Battle Mice, now...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:32AM
These guys should all sign up with Right to Repair organization. http://www.righttorepair.org/main/default.aspx [righttorepair.org]
There is more and more issues with these computerized motors and systems every day. Race enthusiasts are a large enough crowd that there are many companies selling complete replacement computers and "tunes" (software) for cars. But Tractors are a pretty small market segment.
I know of one organization that uses the can-bus port on pickup trucks to insert their own tuner mods rather than try to modify the built in engine/transmission computer.
They delete a lot of the emissions control code, and in the process end up with cleaner emissions, increased horsepower (by up to half again), and 1.5 times the fuel economy on standard Doge diesel pickups. 11 mpg bounced up to 17mpg just by inserting a plug in module under the dash and bypassing some wires under the hood.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:31AM
This is the way to deal with it:
Actuators, motors, electromagnets, sensors still obey those pesky analog laws and can be maneuvered without DRM-shit. No DMCA that gets broken either that way. The only roadblock may be that state certifications on road safety and emissions may be lost. Otoh, traffic cops on farm lands are rare I suspect. Connectors should preferably be replaced to get rid of the proprietary ones.
So document the connector pinout and usage for the actuators, motors, electromagnets, sensors etc. And build control units with published schematic and source code to replace these proprietary units at will.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:33AM
Along with replacing the connectors, I think we also need to replace a lot of congressmen, as well as the law they passed, which egged on this problem.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday February 08 2015, @12:20PM
So true but much harder. Candidates need TV etc which means they need money which corrupts them. And even if they pass that keyhole, lobbying will derail the public representation once elected. So you most likely need to cut the ability for "contributions". Also the voter majority needs to focus on the important policy decisions not what politicians do in bed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @06:31PM
For many voters whether gays can get married or not is more important than the DRM issue, same for abortion rights and other "hot button" issues. Whereas John Deere, Disney, Monsanto, the MAFIAA don't really care about those issues.
Thus in many cases there's no conflict is there? So the politicians can make many happy. Monsanto and Disney get what they want, and the public get their hot button stuff (which way it is depends on which state it is), and the politicians get what they want. Win-win right?
If enough voters start to care about something the US politicians sometimes(often?) listen. Marijuana has become legal in many places.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @02:37AM
Only accepts their brand of toilet paper. Use of another brand triggers the "Check Toilet" lamp and disables flushing until a service tech can come by and reset the code (requires password) which takes 3-4 weeks.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:18AM
to update firmware on the toilet, you invoke a process called, uhm, downline loading
and be sure to hit control-alt-flush beforehand, just to be safe.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 5, Informative) by anubi on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:20AM
Thanks for the story, c0lo! I am from farm stock and found the read quite interesting.
It gave me some idea of what I should be doing... I found Dave Cox's site, or what I believe is his site:
http://farmhack.net/home [farmhack.net]
There are lots of links from there to all sorts of interested parties.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Informative) by mtrycz on Sunday February 08 2015, @09:43AM
This is a simiar project.
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/LifeTrac [opensourceecology.org]
(part of opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)
It's many things in one - it's open source hardware and it's an experiment in organizing a documentation effort on a massive scale.
When I found out about it (on the old site) I was surprised by the scope of the project: it's essentially collaborative documentation. Of the R&D, of the machines themselves, of the repair processes.
It's a really cool project, worth checking out.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:33AM
Replace the entire computer system (tECU). That way, there is no copyrighted code being modified. You will have to replicate all of its functionality, but that might be less work than hacking the existing one. Seriously. Most DRM'ed work are only DRMed because it would be too simple to replace it. If it took a significant amount of work to create, then protecting it would be mostly unnecessary. And you will probably end up with a better improvement as a result of controlling your own platform. Maybe part of the issue is a bad sensor design. You should be able to replace it with something entirely different.
The way that I would do it is I would run both the tECU and its replacement in parallel, and go into failsafe when they disagree on the output for its given inputs. When all failsafes are a result of the original module being faulty, then you can discard it and rely only on the new one.
(Score: 3, Informative) by anubi on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:27AM
Sounds like a "MegaSquirt" for tractors. Sure looks do-able to me as well.
Anyone working on an implementation of engine controllers using the Parallax "Propeller" chip?
That chip's eight-core architecture looks like a shoo-in for engine control, as the use of dedicated cores to timing critical functions will provide the "task fidelity" required to control an engine in motion.
( I do not mean to be spamming for Parallax, rather I want to point out their architecture is rather unique and looks extremely well suited for engine control ).
This is something I would like to do personally if I had a market for it.... as I am already building Propeller-Arduino hybrids ( kinda similar to Andre LaMothe's Chameleon, but I use a different interface protocol and form factor ) for controlling time critical things.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Sunday February 08 2015, @11:01AM
Not sure why you'd need 8 cores for an ECU.
I have Megasquirt on one of my cars. It's the old version with an 8MHz 8-bit MCU. It handles 10,000 interrupts per second from an internal timer plus another 11,000+ (at max engine speed) generated externally by a VR sensor that reads teeth on the flywheel ring gear. The code doesn't support sequential injection, and the board doesn't have the outputs for it, but hypothetically speaking I think there is enough (barely) CPU speed to do it.
Aside from injection timing, I imagine the additional challenge of running a diesel would be the electronics for driving the injectors. And if you're converting an old engine with mechanical injection (in other words, not encumbered by EPA regs) you'd have to get some (high-pressure diesel) electronic injectors and mount/plumb them in the first place.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday February 09 2015, @09:11AM
Why eight cores?
The way a Propeller is programmed is one uses cores ( aka "cogs" ) in lieu of interrupts.
Which means if one has realtime stuff going on, and something else has to be done too, a "cog" is spawned off and executes simultaneously, which means I can have extremely high "task fidelity" for what I am doing. Task Fidelity meaning the cog running the engine is not burdened with things like updating information or communicating to something else... another cog is doing that. Up to eight things can be going on at once.
There are no interrupts on the Propeller. You spawn off a cog instead. The main task remains uninterrupted.
This is the kind of thing I would want to use for, say, ramping a stepper motor up and down while the user at any time may update commands or query status. The cog controlling the stepper won't have time to deal with the communications, so another cog handles it. A typical cog may provide a UART, display, or some other comm port. All cogs share a common mailbox where they share info with each other. Parallax has the whole manual over on their site. Its not a big chip, nor does it require a lot of resources. Its more like a very highly customizable interface chip. In this case: interfacing to an engine.
My own take is that this is the ideal chip for an engine controller and I am itching to horse around with one to find out.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 08 2015, @05:55AM
... was fought primarily by farmers.
Just sayin'
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Bronster on Monday February 09 2015, @02:17AM
Changing the reliability of the tractor from 98% to 99% isn't going to avoid the fact that it's still a single point of failure. We laugh at businesses which only buy a single big server or a single hard disk instead of a redundant set of unreliable parts. Having a single super-tractor is the same.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @03:15PM
We also laugh at "analysts" who draw completely false parallels in two completely unrelated industres. Even if the farmer could get two $750,000 tractors and have redundancy instead of a $1,000,000 ultimate tractor, which doesn't work quite that way, I doubt that the downtime losses would equate to the added cost.
So, how would you seriously propose to remedy it? My humble take would be: if it's a faulty hydraulic sensor that keeps failing, purchase a spare so you don't have the parts-order wait. What's your solution? Oh, you're a gadfly and don't have one.