by Josh Zuck

Some planting has started around Lanark. Most farmers are just getting their planters ready to roll once it is finally fit. We have had some rain this week with more to follow. We may not see much field work in this area until next week.

I ran into an issue with a NH T9.390 that has an AT (autotrac) controller in it and hooked to a Seedstar generation 2 planter where the planter was reading 2 mph all the time. I found that it was picking up the wheel speed from the tractor. I unhooked the wheel speed sensor and it still read 2 mph. I created a DTAC case they said they have run into this on Case and NH machines that have the Raven AT controller. You will need to call a Case or NH service tech to update the controllers on the tractor.

I also had an issue with a JD Starfire SF3000 receiver on a 4830 sprayer that had no GPS signal. I went out to see what was going on a found the frequency was 0000.0000. I input 1539.8725 and then did a cold boot on the receiver, and then it gained full signal. I’m not sure why or what caused it, but the software was 1.90 on the receiver. So if you run into this, make sure the receiver has the most current software version. Check here for the latest software versions.

Teke Heinschel has finally finished mapping boundaries for customers. He was able to cover over 9000 acres on the Gator! We have loaded all of the customer maps into Apex and they have been very pleased with the RTK and shutting off in the waterways. They can really see the seed savings after just the first couple of fields. Check out our RTK page here for more info and tower locations.

Joe Brunker is still seeing a lot of down force sensors reading 0. This has been the most common call of the year.

Raising the planter and re-zeroing the sensors has fixed most but not all. Derek had a height switch cal fix at least one. Disenabling and re-enabling has fixed some. Resetting the pm2 controller has fixed some. In some cases the down pressure is too low and they are driving far enough for it to start reading. Lots of issues. If you want to put something in writing I would talk about re-zeroing the sensors has fixed the majority of them. Call if that doesn’t fix it.

Seeing a lot of set-point planter pumps running all the time. DTAC 95188

Apex has been flashing “The machine with this name already exists” error when trying to upload data. Funny thing is it was a newer 8R tractor that populates the machine serial number. I had to go into setup and change the name, so the data would finally upload.

I found two more 20/20 Precision planters that have vac sensors no. 1 and 2 fail at startup. This has been a Precision planting issue. “Ok” the message and the sensors will eventually be available for the Deere monitor and the sensors will work.

Also, seeing some weird GS3 2630 display issues where I can’t move the shift track check mark and I can’t record curve. A cold re-boot of the display fixed both issues.

Joe Brunker started one planter that was not planting right. After he opened up the door to check the meter, the disk fell out. It’s important to make sure all of your seed disks are properly latched into place.

Bill Kletecka at Cuba City had a new planter that the GS3 2630 display didn’t recognize it. It would show the PM1 and PM2 controllers’ online, but wouldn’t load the icon for the planter. The customer’s display also did this last year, so we gave him a new display and it worked fine all spring. He couldn’t get it to act up on any planters on the lot, so he gave it back the customer. Customer ran it on his new S670 all fall without any more problems. We put it on his new planter for this spring and it won’t work again. He currently has a loaner display again and it’s working fine.

Cuba City has started several planters in the field, but no one has been very serious with the current weather conditions. A few things that we have caught on startup was the triangle being at the connection point again, and also down pressure sensors not reading, or reading zero. All of the down pressure sensors were reading 0 signifying that they were online and just needing to be re-zeroed in order to work properly.