by Josh Zuck

Spring is finally here. We have been really busy finishing up installs and getting planters ready . NH3 is getting close to done. I had a few planters start yesterday with more this week to get started.

I had the opportunity to work with a customer and his new Raven Vortex HP NH3 system. It is a single cooler system that runs a pump to increase the NH3 pressure. He installed on a 2510H 23 row. With a single cooler he could run 8 MPH at 200 units per acre. This system is full ISOBUS and runs through the GS3 2630 without the need of a rate controller. The GS3 also uses the Section Control to shutoff sections of the bar. It was also very easy to set up and run with the GS3.

I ran into an issue where a AT Controller on a Case IH was throw a fault in the Raven setup screen along with code ACI 522390.09. I downloaded the latest Raven software and the customer ran for 2 days then it threw the same code again. I re-downloaded the software again and it worked, but I also did a DTAC case and will keep everyone updated once they get back to me.

Seeing a lot of down force sensors reading zero yet. Seems like a few things can get them working again. Raise planter and zero, calibrate height switch, disable and re-enable. There’s also a DTAC case that talks about resetting the PM2 controller as a last resort, but I haven’t had to do that yet.

Joe Brunker and Jon Reynolds found a bad poly phaser( part used to protect the amp from lightning strikes ) was the problem on weak signal at the Hazel Green leg. With that said all towers are now up and operational. With a few more climbs we will be finished on all towers.

During a few installs, I noticed that our RTK signal was very strong. In several cases I was able to get 100% RTK data received inside steel machine sheds, and in one case that was 8 miles away. Another instance was getting the Shullsburg tower all the way up to the Lancaster tower (30.98 miles away), unfortunately the Deere software won’t let you run that far from a tower. All of the current RTK customers have begun gator mapping and have reported better coverage than they expected.

Bill adds, “this past week I had the pleasure of fighting a 1770 that had Precision installed on it. The planter needed a new d.p. node installed and while we were installing it we also installed new software and dielectric greased the connectors. Before we left I checked over all settings and verified that it was correct. A few days later customer is called complaining that the software made a bunch of his sensors not work and throw codes. After another stop to their farm, and the better part of the day with help from a Cuba City tech, we realized that the Precision Planting 20/20 was booting up after the 2630 causing sensors for both vacuum motors and other random codes to be thrown. They all went away and planter preformed normally when the precision stuff was removed out of the system. I truly feel that during season calls for random “odd” errors our first diagnostic test should be to remove any and all precision harnesses. 9 out if 10 times it would solve the problem.”

Bill also had an iTc receiver on 4830 sprayer with 2630 display. The display had an error message of no GPS signal and couldn’t be accepted to move to another screen. It ended up being software. Receiver would work on another display, so I loaded software on that first and then was able to get the customers display to acknowledge and also take new software

New 1790 planters will unfold with the rock shaft units in the raised position. Follow D-Tac solution 67973 and make adjustments as necessary. Lots of damage occurs when these are folded out with the units raised.

New 4038R set up finding a noise in the right front corner of the cab, following all solutions did not prove any results. Only seems to occur on rougher roads and only while going down- hill. We delivered to Customer and they are aware of the problem and will continue to monitor. Have also entered a D-Tac case.