Which simple gps system for a dairy farm?

Sparkymark · Mar 2, 2016

Ok decision made. I have ordered a Teejet matrix 430.
The price and the level of technology of the equipment seemed to fit what i was looking for most. I will post an update on this thread when i'm up and running with it to give some kind of review.
Thanks for all the feedback and advice.

Breakthru · Mar 2, 2016

Have not read every string but having used guidance for 15 years a very simple piece of practical advice is mount the aerial on a mast on the weight frame on the front of the tractor. That way you get accurate turns at the end without any figure of eights! Think about it, the last place to turn is where you sit, so why mount the aerial above the cab. The signal is travelling multi miles out of the sky so another six feet will not matter. The steering light reacts at a speed depending on baud rate that you can follow easily giving very smooth in and out especially in a grass situation.
For drilling mount the aerial on a mast above the top link that way you will always be the same distance from the last driill point no matter if the tractor is crabbing along the side of a hill.

Docwalters · Mar 8, 2016

Got to agree with both Robt and Pheasant Surprise.

Antenna should be mounted as high as possible to read signals from satellites.

Also remove from great lump of machinery that can set up all sorts of radio and electrical harmonics.

When mounted in centre of cab, with correct measurements input to unit there should be no gaps in spreading, spraying etc,
as unit will read antenna as being at the heart of the work.

I once asked another manufacturer how he worked on slopes with no terrain compensation and he said,"Mount the antenna on the axle!"
Oh Dear.

stroller · Mar 9, 2016

ploughman1963 said:
but in order to get back wheels to move back on line, you have to travel forward several metres and with something simple like Mojo mini you are very easily the other side of the line before the screen tells you and so you end up weaving. Mounted on the bonnet a correction is very quick due to the receiver moving left or right v quickly due to the steering. I can only tell you what I have noted with mowing and fertiliser spreading - I get nice straight lines with the receiver on the bonnet

Me too, I started with my mini mojo on the roof, but ended up over correcting and a really wavy tramline. I now have it mounted on the front weight holder at bonnet level. I Have also set the implement offset to zero so it thinks the trailed sprayer is at the antenna, this makes turning into the tramline from the headland more accurate. I found if the offset was 8m behind the antenna (trailed chafer) as I turned into the tramline it would tell me to move off the tramline to get the boom in the right place. No doubt I'm a simple peasant who is using it completely wrong but I did manage to apply liquid N last year without misses and that was without putting in tramlines with the drill

Lewis · Mar 11, 2016

We have just purchased a patchwork blackbox GO. Manual says to position the antenna in the centre of the cab roof. Over the front windscreen? It's going on a. JD 6330.

stroller · Mar 13, 2016

Try it there and then on the weight frame and see if there is any difference

Johnjmc · Mar 14, 2016

milkloss said:
Don't get me wrong, they are great bits of kit but it's best you know it's not going to work magic before you buy it!

Our topcon worked magic! Brilliant tool.

Docwalters · Mar 15, 2016

riverside said:
I bought a black box 505 last year. I tough it was a bit slow or something but didn't use it much for a finish. Anyway I used a different make few days ago think it came from jd dealer not sure make but it was far better than mine.used mine today first time this year and it's seriously sh*t compare to the jd one. For example went you turn at headland to get lined up for the next line it's slow coming on the screen by the time you turn to line up ur past it then stop try line up the line starts moving and flicking. I don't thinks it operater cause a friend used the 2 and said the same. Any suggestions. I am in Ireland.

The 505 is not sold in UK and is a very simple system. You cannot compare it as like-for-like since it was intended for a specific job at very low cost.

brynseiri · Mar 17, 2016

I have found the stock and dairy farmers solution for guidance, I have not yet patented the idea, but here's basically how it works, have yourself about seven kids, once they are old enough, make them stand in the field holding flags in the desired line. Add waterproof clothes for when you are spraying.

D C · Mar 17, 2016

brynseiri said:
I have found the stock and dairy farmers solution for guidance, I have not yet patented the idea, but here's basically how it works, have yourself about seven kids, once they are old enough, make them stand in the field holding flags in the desired line. Add waterproof clothes for when you are spraying.

The was a father and son doing this in France when we were there on holiday, looked very effective.

brynseiri · Mar 17, 2016

D C said:
The was a father and son doing this in France when we were there on holiday, looked very effective.

There's a likeable character up here nick named Gadget, he's tried everything including farming in Romania or some eastern block lawless shithole country where crop dusting with aeroplanes is the norm, he went up in the plane with the crop duster come barn stormer as he dusted gadgets crops, this bloke had a load of urchins holding flags to mark the drop zone, he said they all got fecking covered in this poison dust. No wonder they want to come here and clean up dogshit for £4.80/hour.

Darren · Mar 17, 2016

I remember flag men doing that here with aero spraying.
Uncle worked for a company on a early so sprayer. The chopper pilots were Aussies. When spraying for blight they used to like to come back with spud tops on the skids. Knew they were low enough then

SimpersTradeCounter · Mar 18, 2016

brynseiri said:
There's a likeable character up here nick named Gadget, he's tried everything including farming in Romania or some eastern block lawless shithole country where crop dusting with aeroplanes is the norm, he went up in the plane with the crop duster come barn stormer as he dusted gadgets crops, this bloke had a load of urchins holding flags to mark the drop zone, he said they all got fecking covered in this poison dust. No wonder they want to come here and clean up dogshit for £4.80/hour.

Made me laugh out loud this morning
Thanks for that

Hampton · Mar 18, 2016

SimpersTradeCounter said:
Did you receive my PM with the price for the patchwork Black box GO! ?

Can you send me a price on it please? Thanks

pudding · Mar 20, 2016

no one mentioned the Agleader Compass yet? 7 inch screen, comes in kit with GPS6000 L1 antenna (GLONASS/GPS + EGNOS and GL1DE) and cigarette lighter plug (12volts)

popular grassland farmers machine, found Smartpath function a good tool if your not into drawing lines, when it colours in on the screen it will calculate the next path on the last, great when you don't like pushing buttons, and want to do multiple little fields in one job spreading fert or spraying etc, and you are not interested in the data. it does everything like the bigger displays do, but will not do product control....ie its a guidance/steering enables display

is the new hexagon ti5 available in your country yet? another good display that you can set up as a sprayer if you want

Matthewcollins88 · Mar 23, 2016

New to the market but seem to be doing what farmers are looking for is sixty5 grass guide. Seem simple to work and also use a tablet so screen size doesn't seem to be an issue.

90hp farming · Apr 28, 2016

Well, today I have Christened my new 750 lite. Really chuffed with it. Bit of after breakfast roundup before the wind got up on an old grassfield (8 sided field) with a few little humps and hollows. As a practise session I got on well.
In my pre purchase research, I asked several `with it` farmers who had experience of steering guidance. I concluded there were two schools of thought : those that found a light bar helpful and probably like me, were used to pacing out each end of a field with sticks and flags. Then there were those that found following a lightbar hard work, couldn`t really recommend them and actually had a complete self steering system.
I can drive in a straight line without a GPS machine, but as my drill has no tramliner and I have a fair bit of grassland to look after, it was the `knowing where to drive` aspect that interested me.
My very limited experience to date (it was a twelve acre field - 4.57 ha to be precise - it measured it for me), leads me to believe you would not indeed want to be spraying several hundred acres a day with a light bar guidance system. Tends to give you a headache if you focus on the coloured lights. I found that once you were on track, the key was to look ahead as normal and just keep the screen out the corner of your eye.
Tested the accuracy by running back between the wheelings - the boom ends hung over the middle of the wheelings pretty spot on.
Then tested the `re-run` capability by going back over the wheelings and following the guidance. It was never more than a front wheel`s width out. my front wheels are 12" wide. Exactly what it said on the tin (15 - 30 cm accuracy)
Obviously have much more to learn and to play with, but the thing that tickled me was the `colouring in`

90hp farming · Apr 28, 2016

sorry - continued...........
`colouring in` part of the screen. You just keep going until you have painted all the field. Really useful in the gores and for the little sneckings.

So there is my experience. £1500 plus a sucker pad. I have spent that sum on worse things. Like eartags for the lambs!

Archie · Apr 28, 2016

90hp farming said:
sorry - continued...........
`colouring in` part of the screen. You just keep going until you have painted all the field. Really useful in the gores and for the little sneckings.

So there is my experience. £1500 plus a sucker pad. I have spent that sum on worse things. Like eartags for the lambs!

Could have done with something like that myself this afternoon.
Spreading fert at 21m on what was the lambing field until a fortnight ago in a heavy snow shower got pretty interesting

Thankfully grass is so bare nobody should notice my tracks

ewald · Apr 29, 2016

I bought a secondhand Teejet centreline 220 earlier this year and have started using it to top dress and spray grassland - very pleased with it, seems accurate enough. I agree with some of the comments about following a lightbar, it also has a digital dislay which tells you how far off line you are - I found this easier to use.

Which simple gps system for a dairy farm?

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