4 ms·

Tractors dont just do one thing. They are quite a versatile piece of equipment. Portable power plant ( PTO shaft is huge ), taking thousands of lbs of grain to

• blensor 8y ago
  Yes it's always funny and kind of scary to look at when the farmers in our area put a Tractor next to the fixed water pumps that are located on their fields and have them running without anyone nearby. The tractors are driving the water pumps directly and the shaft that connects them is usually exposed without any safeguards around it.
  • geggam 8y ago
    I worked for a farmer who was caught in one of those. It spun him around a few times. His right side his body was somewhat sideways after that. That happened to him when he was in his 40's He was 87 yrs old and still farming hard when I worked for him
  • vvanders 8y ago
    While the PTO shafts are "exposed" these days they're in a sheath that covers the whole length with guards on both ends. You still want to be really careful around them but things have become much safer. That said, farm equipment still needs to be treated with a healthy amount of respect, being lax around any running machinery will easily get you killed.
    • blensor 8y ago
      I don't think that's the case here, I can see the whole shaft rotating, and also could easily touch the joints where it is connected at both ends. But the tech they are using is sometimes more than 20 years old I guess, so maybe new ones are required to have protections. Anyway, I am treating those things with a healthy kind of respect.
      • vvanders 8y ago
        Yeah, sounds like it's an older PTO shaft. The newer ones are much, much safer but the guards make them an absolute pain to grease properly.
  • yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    > exposed without any safeguards around it. I get the idea that that's a bit of a theme. Its a bit like how the root user always has the ability to run `rm -rf *`
    • pontifier 8y ago
      I put that to the test one time on a system I was going to wipe anyway... It didn't work. The trend across the board seems to be: protect people from doing dangerous things without confirmation, because it's easier to protect them, than deal with complaints or fix the messes they make after the fact.
      • yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
        Really? I know `rm -rf /` doesn't work, but was pretty sure the star version did. Time to go burn a VM:)
        • pontifier 8y ago
          I'll have to do the same thing again too, cause now I'm not so sure...
• vvanders 8y ago
  Yeah, a tractor is largely just an engine + weight(traction). What attachments(front and back, PTO) are what make them useful. Their popularity is largely driven by the large variety of things you can do with them. Our CUT(Compact Utility Tractor) does very little 'farming' at the moment. However all the other things it does(dirt work, leveling, moving 500lb hay bales, mowing/pasture upkeep) are why we have it around. When you look at the 3-point hitch, power take-off and SSQA just about anything you can do with dedicated equipment you can do with a CUT. The dedicated equipment may be faster but you only have to upkeep a single machine with a tractor.