by Josh Zuck

Field work hit full swing last week with a lot of NH3 going and also some tillage work. Rate Controllers have been working great on NH3 bars. We have had to lower the fast close numbers from 743 to 343 to keep them from bouncing around. Always remember that NH3 is nothing to mess around with. Make sure to always have the proper PPE, always be up wind, and have NH3 gloves and non vented goggles when working on them.

I had a DB66 planter that kept throwing code PM2 1351.14, an alert for the air compressor operating time limit exceeded – check for leaks. If you have this come up, go to PM2 address 22 and the last digit is a 1 when compressor is running and a 0 when it is off. If it stays at 1 when the compressor is off, need to replace the PM2 controller.

I had a GS3 2630 fail during start up. The loading bar would only go across about ¼ of the way and stop. I did a field reprogram and that fixed it.

Teke Heinschel product support salesman at Lanark, has still been busy with boundary mapping. He only has about 5000 acres more to map, and should be done early next week

Joe Brunker from Monroe, Bill Kletecka from Cuba City, Josh Thornton from White Hall, Derek Sloan from Assumption, Cory Barnes from Lanark, and myself got all of the new RTK base stations set up in Wisconsin last week. The 50 mph winds didn’t stop us from climbing those grain legs. Thanks to the guys down south for coming up and helping us out.

Chuck Standley, Service Manager in Monroe adds that the last couple of 1790 planters he has set up have had the drill shafts out of line and are binding when running the variable rate. This is an easy fix, just need to loosen tem up and let them re-center.

Joe Brunker, Product Support Specialist at Monroe, says he could not get Internet Explorer to work with the Stellar Support website this week. Google’s Chrome browser has been much better. Joe also had one farmer who was getting an EIC error while downloading boundaries, but downloading the latest version of the software fixed it. This is just another reason why you need to make sure displays, receivers and Apex are running the most current software versions before planting season.

Our Broadhead RTK base seems strong, even though it has to transmit through a small mountain. The 450 MHZ radios are really impressive in our rolling terrain of Northern IL and Southwestern WI.

We have been fielding a lot of documentation and layout manager questions as guys reinstall displays that were in combines last fall.

Bill Kletecka, Product Support Specialist at Cuba City, adds that installs have been going at a fevered pace with several more to do before planting. He will be putting up a repeater on the Hazel Green RTK tower to cover the land that the customer needs for his operation.

Bill had a customer that started his Kinze planter that had the white triangle implement indicator on his display move to the drawbar. This in turn made setting clutches impossible. Toggling the non-steering point from front to rear has fixed this issue.

We are getting some snow today, Monday April 14, but then suppose to be warming up the rest of the week. We had about 1 ½” of rain Saturday night through Monday morning. We really need the rain. A lot of guys are talking about planting mid next week. So as of right now we are running a normal schedule.