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I've seen a video of a guy who 3D printed the mold of a very rare replacement part for his BMW and cast it with Aluminum, and it then fitted and worked perfectl

I've seen a video of a guy who 3D printed the mold of a very rare replacement part for his BMW and cast it with Aluminum, and it then fitted and worked perfectly as well as the original if not better. I have family that still use JD tractors from 60s and 70s. In fact I have a relative who bough one for less than 2k, refurbished it for ~5k, and use it during winter for his chalet. Why don't we build pre-computerized tractors? I understand that cast-iron will break, but still the point remains with CNC machines becoming cheaper and cheaper.

nexuist 5y ago
> Why don't we build pre-computerized tractors? Because unlike regular passenger cars the automation in tractors is essential for high yields. A farm that uses high tech tractors is going to beat out a farm with traditional tractors every single time. The days of the old boomer farmer are long gone; anyone who has managed to avoid getting swallowed by the conglomerates by this point has a pretty cutting edge setup that would make some startups blush. Drones, IoT, ML, etc. have been penetrating agriculture since the 2010s. I think a better strategy would be to build open source tractor software for open source tractor hardware; some kind of "Linux for farms" coalition. It is very hard finding software people who intersect with agriculture people though which is what makes this a difficult undertaking.
- xvilka 5y ago
  There is AgStack Foundation[1], an offshoot of Linux Foundation. I have zero idea how successfull it is, though. [1] https://agstack.org/ https://agstack.org/
  - nexuist 5y ago
    Awesome! Thank you for the link. It's great that people are already doing something for this field.
- Glawen 5y ago
  As I've heard from people in the agro business, the equipments are already communicating on a standard Isobus (non open source), allowing to use differents equipment together. What would open source bring? You always need a hardware anyway, and the conditions are rough, a RPI would not survive. And for farmers locked in JD awful customer service, well they have plenty of choices beside JD, except they are not all American.

nexuist 5y ago

> Why don't we build pre-computerized tractors? Because unlike regular passenger cars the automation in tractors is essential for high yields. A farm that uses high tech tractors is going to beat out a farm with traditional tractors every single time. The days of the old boomer farmer are long gone; anyone who has managed to avoid getting swallowed by the conglomerates by this point has a pretty cutting edge setup that would make some startups blush. Drones, IoT, ML, etc. have been penetrating agriculture since the 2010s. I think a better strategy would be to build open source tractor software for open source tractor hardware; some kind of "Linux for farms" coalition. It is very hard finding software people who intersect with agriculture people though which is what makes this a difficult undertaking.

xvilka 5y ago
There is AgStack Foundation[1], an offshoot of Linux Foundation. I have zero idea how successfull it is, though. [1] https://agstack.org/ https://agstack.org/
- nexuist 5y ago
  Awesome! Thank you for the link. It's great that people are already doing something for this field.
Glawen 5y ago
As I've heard from people in the agro business, the equipments are already communicating on a standard Isobus (non open source), allowing to use differents equipment together. What would open source bring? You always need a hardware anyway, and the conditions are rough, a RPI would not survive. And for farmers locked in JD awful customer service, well they have plenty of choices beside JD, except they are not all American.