Anyone used agopen?

Roderick1st

Member
@Roderick1st , thanks for your reply. I have a couple of questions. Do you send the timing data every time a paddle crosses in front of the sensor or do you accumulate x timings and send the data every y seconds? Also, why do you think it's necessary to know when the table is up or down? There will still be grain in the elevator while turning at the end of the field. How do you use lat long in excel?

I started playing with an esp32 and ublox neo6 gps. I am thinking of saving an acumulated Q data from the optical sensor for every 10 meters or so along with the gps position and speed. Also, i will put the gps data in a fifo so that the location will be x seconds old, where x is the time it takes for the grain to go from the table to the elevator. The data from the optical sensor will be in the form of %off, to eliminate errors caused by a lower rpm during hard work. I will read the stored data via bluetooth at the end of the day and then do some postprocessing - running 2 combines and i'll have to merge two sets of data
This is what i have planned so far, we'll see how it goes
Hi Neo,

I record each timing and when the phone gets a gps location change I store the average value with the location. Location changes happen every 4 seconds or so.

I also store the time from the bottom of a paddle passing the beam to the time the bottom of the next paddle passes. This enables me tell if the combine was running at full throttle or not as your going to get very bad results ie high yield readings if you're sat stopped off loading etc as the paddles will take longer to pass the beam. This would be a good figure to use to get a correction for combine loading. Worth testing against %off?

Knowing when the table is up means that the grain you have just harvested before entering the headland won't be counted. I've used software in excel to remove the false data. If you don't then your headlands looks to be the best yielding area of the field. Using previous GPS position instead of current would help (in progress) but if you ever stop combining and just wait to see how long it takes for grain to stop coming into the tank its quite a while.

With excel I create an array of squares covering the area of the field starting with the lowest lat long recorded (converted in to whole numbers) going to the highest numbers. This further averages out the readings for more consistent data. It also allows me to extrapolate data for squares with no data by looking at surrounding squares. Each one of these squares are represented by a cell within excel. I feed the array out into the cells, conditional format the cells and hide the text within the cell.

There are items Im looking to change... One using phone gps is rubbish so better accuracy gps would benefit the system.

I think you're right to delay gps readings to improve accuracy on where yield is actually coming from. It was a mission coding an android app and its still buggy and likes to crash. An esp32 / Arduino with high quality GPS attached to that is the way to go. Although feeding the data to the phone makes life easy.

I haven't looked at the excel code for a while , I'll try to learn GIT and stick it on there as it would be great to share abilities and ideas on the project.
 

Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
There is ongoing debate about which IMU to use:
The BNO055 has been canned. It's utter gash.
The BNO080 or BNO085 is much better and I am currently using them on my machines. There is no difference between the two other than a minor bug fix on an interface that we don't use anyway.
The CMPS14 is better still. It's based around the BNO085 but is easier to talk to, and comes pre-calibrated. I will be using this in all future designs and I think you should too

Are you still happy with the CMPS Charles? I have one for my build but i see a few issues (spikes etc) on the aog message boards.
 

cquick

Member
BASE UK Member
Mostly happy, and I am still supplying them as part of the kit to my beta testers, but I now think for future designs I will go back to the BNO. About once a day on one of my boxes, the heading will start jittering by a few degrees which wreaks havoc with the steering. A restart sorts it but I never had that issue with the BNO. It could just be a duff unit, got no issues with the others, but it has marred my confidence in them.
I also prefer how I can get the bare chip of the BNO, so it's easier to work into a custom design.
 

Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
Mostly happy, and I am still supplying them as part of the kit to my beta testers, but I now think for future designs I will go back to the BNO. About once a day on one of my boxes, the heading will start jittering by a few degrees which wreaks havoc with the steering. A restart sorts it but I never had that issue with the BNO. It could just be a duff unit, got no issues with the others, but it has marred my confidence in them.
I also prefer how I can get the bare chip of the BNO, so it's easier to work into a custom design.

I have a CMPS but was a bit wary about going ahead with it...although I seee no where with stocks of the BNO so CMPS it is!
 

SJamieson

Member
Mixed Farmer
Are we all using rtk2go?
I see a few notes on unreliability and wondered if that was the case? Is there any alternative?

Hoping to have my system ready to go in a few weeks.
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
The main alternative seems to be getting your own static IP and setting up your own caster with it.

I'm using rtk2go at the moment and don't think I've had any trouble with it while working yet. Early days though.
 
Location
North
Are we all using rtk2go?
I see a few notes on unreliability and wondered if that was the case? Is there any alternative?

Hoping to have my system ready to go in a few weeks.

I don't use rtk2go but that is mainly because they did not exist at the time I built my first base. Also my internet provider does not charge any extra for a public IP address (competitors locally charge 2€ per month, not a bid deal either). My understanding is that a public IP address is not equally simple everywhere and then rtk2go is a perfect solution.

At the AOG forum members post mixed reports, likely some temporary issues with some users.
 

Cxman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Can agopen be used as a lightbar only setup? Wouldnt have any use for rtk and thought if it was easy enough to make it would be a nice project
 

Cxman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Yes got myself an Ardusimple basic starter kit and a tough book. Downloaded agopen gps, and mounted ariel and just plugged it all in.
I like following the curved ab line because it shows a circle for how sharp to turn which I find easier to follow than the light bar bit.
have u got any pictures of ur setup?
Does any toughbook work with it or does it have to have a certain operating system and sized ram on it?
 

JCB_JCR

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
have u got any pictures of ur setup?
Does any toughbook work with it or does it have to have a certain operating system and sized ram on it?
Haven't got any pictures yet. Just needs something running windows. 2nd hand Toughbook was about the cheapest I could find at the time. Don't think it needs much ram. You should be able to find info on agopen website.
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
Pretty much any windows laptop or tablet should do. So long as it's not a lightweight version that will only run apps from window's store. I started off using an old laptop which was pretty low spec by modern standards and windows 8.1

A standard laptop isn't very practical in tractor cabs though and the screens on most ordinary laptops don't get very bright for use outsite. I use CF-C2 2in1 toughbooks now for agopen and the CF-D1 toughbook tablet is fairly popular with other users. Both can be bought secondhand/refurbished for around £250.

4gb ram is enough for running agopen on windows 10. Windows 10 consumes about 3gb and agopen needs very little. I tend to get 8gb ram when buying another though, just to future proof against future windows updates.

I would though strongly recommend making sure any laptop you get is fitted with an SSD rather than a HDD hard drive, as that has about the biggest impact on the performance of older laptops.
 

JCB_JCR

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Couple pictures. I made a bracket for areial and bolted to front of cab and threaded cable through worklight wire hole. 3d printed the cable tied on black box (design from thingverse) with aurdusimple board in. Currently just hook the toughbook onto mount I previously made for my tablet and phone. But this wobbles all over the place and I need to make something much better and also secure the inverter.
20210910_111639.jpg

20210913_145341.jpg

Spreading chicken muck at 5.5m, without rtk signal, using lightbar.
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
The tilt compensation seems to work pretty well for me. It was very noticeable one day this season when there was an issue while I was combining a landed field and for some reason the IMU stopped updating heading and roll. Not sure what caused that, but was case of turning stuff off and back on to fix it.
 

Cxman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Couple pictures. I made a bracket for areial and bolted to front of cab and threaded cable through worklight wire hole. 3d printed the cable tied on black box (design from thingverse) with aurdusimple board in. Currently just hook the toughbook onto mount I previously made for my tablet and phone. But this wobbles all over the place and I need to make something much better and also secure the inverter.
View attachment 985650
View attachment 985651
Spreading chicken muck at 5.5m, without rtk signal, using lightbar.
Iv been looking at toughbooks again lately and I have a few questions . I seen a few cf-d1 like yours far sale
How do you power your tablet?
Do you use your finger or d stylus on d screen mostly?
I am wanting to just use lightbar guidance for fert spreading and spraying and small jobs
Thanks
 

JCB_JCR

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Iv been looking at toughbooks again lately and I have a few questions . I seen a few cf-d1 like yours far sale
How do you power your tablet?
Do you use your finger or d stylus on d screen mostly?
I am wanting to just use lightbar guidance for fert spreading and spraying and small jobs
Thanks

Use a 12v dc to 230v ac inverter and plug in normal toughbook power lead. Did wonder about direct 12v feed but power block output is 16v so didn't think it would work.

Jab screen with finger mostly.

I find the curve guidance easier to follow than straight line because it shows a circle with diameter that changes depending on how much you need to steer.
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
I was having some usb connection issues when using laptop charger plugged into a lighter socket, which were probably due to having multiple earth points, so now power my toughbooks from the AgOpen circuit board, using a basic buck converter to step up from 12v to 16v.
 

Cxman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Use a 12v dc to 230v ac inverter and plug in normal toughbook power lead. Did wonder about direct 12v feed but power block output is 16v so didn't think it would work.

Jab screen with finger mostly.

I find the curve guidance easier to follow than straight line because it shows a circle with diameter that changes depending on how much you need to steer.
Thanks. I assume u have a switch to turn off power going to inverter when its not in use?
 

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