Basic GPS

[Andy84]

Im sure it's been done to death but I'm looking to get a basic GPS system for fert spreading, spraying and mowing mostly maybe a bit of sowing. At the moment I'm looking at the Agricision on-Trak (I already have an iPad and it's the cheapest), one of the patchworks and the Sixty-5 Grass Guide. I thought about the Teejet 220 Centreline but prefer the idea of a screen. Is it worth paying the extra for field recording etc with the Patchworks?
Thoughts?

 

[KB6930]

I'm not sure what version of patchwork your meaning so don't know what it can all do but I've a patchwork black box and I've got most of grass fields mapped etc so it's handy when you drive into a field it comes up with the size (don't need it at home but I spread fert for a few other folk so can't remember every field size) if you're just looking for a straight line at the right width then an app would be fine I'd say

Only sowing I do is grass/small seeds with harrow/seeder using it to make sure I don't miss anything it's not easy trying to follow manual guidance spot on all day!!

In my experience patchwork is absolutely fine for most jobs I don't use it as much now as we've got a couple of autosteer tractors now but if I'm spraying grass I need it in the sprayer and it certainly does the job

 

[KB6930]

Mine also remembers A-B lines if you've made a boundary so if you're still at the same width it'll be there to use might not be in the same place but you just centre it back to where you want it

 

[del_boy]

I bought a patchwork blackbox air plus. It records the boundary and also sets an internal headland at any width if you want it to. Have had big problems with the outer boundary line moving and also causing the inner boundary to move and they cant seem to fix it. It has auto field recognition which is handy. Very simple to set up and use

 

[ewald]

Teejet 220 here, using it for the same jobs as you. Very easy to use, bought secondhand so cheap. Ask around - I found that several bigger farmers had unused simple Gps units following upgrades.

 

[Grassman247]

I had black box, was a load of rubbish, any large farm soon fills it up and we had to wait upto 10 minutes between fields for it to save data and let us start the next field. Rang support and they were clueless, fortunately it fell of the windscreen and broke and we upgraded to a Trimble, it’s not as user friendly but once you get your head around things it’s a smart piece of kit.

 

[milkloss]

Thing I’ve found with my patchwork advance is that it is very hard to turn at the headlands into the next bout with any accuracy at all so it’s back to the mk1 eyeball to get you started. 12m spraying on grassland I actually reverse round to the next bout rather than turn forwards: it’s easier to eyeball a feature such as dock and match the tip of the boom with it as you go round to start the next run.

 

[KB6930]

With the patchwork I find that depending on how the headland is layed out it can be difficult to get turned in on the line if it's square it's not too bad but when you're turning back on yourself it's not so easy

If it's a square end I'll drive along and start to turn in when the number measurement gets to 6m from the line with the tractor 4m with the 4 wheel steer sprayer the further forward you get the receiver the easier it is to follow the line as well before I glued a plate onto the sprayer roof I stuck the receiver onto a bar behind the cab and it was about impossible to follow to be fair if I'd changed to settings for the receiver measurements it might have helped

At the end of the day any manual guidance isn't going to be spot on like autosteer but still better than guessing it

 

[tommy tucker]

[QUOTE... I'm looking to get a basic GPS system for fert spreading, spraying and mowing mostly maybe a bit of sowing. At the moment I'm looking at the Agricision on-Trak …]
I have one of these its fine for fert spreading, spraying and mowing but not accurate enough for drilling. 30cm is a big miss!
its cheap and cheerful and it fundamentally does what I need, but the ability to follow a curved AB line would be handy as some of our fields don't have a straight edge