by Lucas Veale

The rain has stopped any and all field work across Central Illinois and customers are anxious to get to the field.  We have seen very high interest and sales this past week with AMS as customer are anticipating a narrower planting window.  Rate controllers and RTK seemed to be the hot ticket this past week.

Kinze ISO and clutches continue to also sell well.  Customers like using their John Deere screens for everything in the cab.  We are currently installing a complete SF2 autotrac, ISO, swath control, and clutch system in a JD 4640 and a 2006 model 16/31 Kinze 3600.

For customers with row clutches you need to make sure that the dimensions are correct for the machine and implement.  Start with a turn on time of 1.0 sec and a turn off time of .6 sec.  This should get you within the first row and you can fine tune it from there.  However, don’t chase your tail too long.  If you get within a ½ row of perfect, just leave it alone.   It is also important to check the position of the white triangle on the tractor indicating the position of the Starfire receiver.  It needs to show on the front of the cab.  If it shows it near the front of the implement  (which we have been seeing a lot of this) you need to switch the fixed axle position from rear to front and then back to rear.  If this is not checked it will really throw off the swath control.

(See picture below)

KPM III monitors could potentially not show any speed or the incorrect speed.  Check the speed cal number to make sure it hasn’t jumped way high.  Also, when using a radar adapter, the Kinze monitors must have at least three pins populated.  It will not work with only 2 pins.

If you are using Stellar Support for any updates or activations it is recommended that you use Google Chrome rather than Internet Explorer or just call the call center.

Deere just announced a new GO PLANT APP available for download on itunes (iPad only).  It has a lot of nice features and is handy for showing a customer the new Seedstar monitor as well as other planter items.

The Seed Meter test stand is still running at full capacity trying to get caught up.  We now have the adapter to run pro-meters with Tru Count clutches.  Please make sure that if a customer wants their meters ran they need to send at least a full bag of seed.  A coffee can full of seed will not cut it.

On April 1, 2015 we will no longer support 900 MHZ RTK radios.  We will leave them active as long as they continue to work, but we will not repair them if/when they fail to operate or cause our 450 MHZ units to fail.  The technology of the 450 MHZ radios far exceeds the 900 MHZ and is the direction of the industry.

Pre-season planter visits continue to be in full swing for those customers who purchased planters for this growing season.  Most have gone smoothly and we have found/fixed some minor issue prior to the customer going to the field.

All 2009 and 2010 model Seedstar 2 planters MUST be on version 10 software to work with the latest GS3 (3.22) software update.  It will partially work but items like swath pro will not be present or could be intermittent.