9 ms·

In the battle over the right to repair, open-source tractors offer alternatives

148 points by grej 4y ago

colechristensen 4y ago
I mean, neat, but come back when you’ve got something with hundreds of horsepower that could serve as an actual alternative. It’s a bit ambitious to talk about that as a competitor to John Deere
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Baby steps. You can't go from nothing to something very powerful in one step. This is an accomplishment worth celebrating, and nobody said that's it, we're done.
- floatrock 4y ago
  > but come back when you've got something with hundreds of [megabytes] that could serve as an actual... competitor to [IBM] For someone hanging out on hackernews with the name Christensen, I imagine you would have stumbled upon The Innovator's Dilemma by now. Tiny competitors disrupting established incumbents by playing a different game that is fundamentally incompatible with the incumbents' business model is the very story of tech disruption.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    Having grown up driving tractors with hundreds of horsepower, it's not that. These projects are neat, but they are backyard gardening toys. If you wanted to build a tractor that competed, you could start perfectly fine with something big. You would need the kind of machine tools that many farmers have to repair their own equipment and the capital to build something big, but most of what you would need that a person of decent skill couldn't do themselves is available off the shelf. Someone could disrupt with a small scale competitor, but the place to start wouldn't look like a go-kart, it would look like this [1] 50-150 HP range, probably without a cab, with appropriate standard hitches, hydraulics, PTO, etc. You could learn lessons and scale from there. The couple of open source farming tractor things I've seen have been cute, but just not anything like what would actually compete, and there's no reason not to start with something that at least is in range. 1. https://www.caseih.com/northamerica/en-us/products/tractors/vestrum-series https://www.caseih.com/northamerica/en-us/products/tractors/...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      You don't need massive machines, you need a certain ratio of crops to labour and capital. If the go kart tractor allows experimentation with automation and presently difficult to automate farming methods or crops then it may be viable. It won't compete with the ten hectares of wheat needed for one person to earn a living wage even without other costs, but there might be a niche for produce rather than calorie crops that looks like 1000 gardens rather than a vast ocean of corn. Edit: Opened your link to the rather small tractors, this is what I had in mind with the one in the article being more along the lines of what the reprap was in the 2000s compared to a ratrig now.
conorcleary 4y ago
I often refer back to Open Source Ecology when agricultural hardware is brought up: https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-index/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-index/
Ancapistani 4y ago
It looks like a modern Farmall Cub to me. I like it!
Animats 4y ago
If you want a cheap lightweight tractor, there are plenty on Alibaba, starting around US$3500. But you're not going to pull full sized implements with them.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Shhh! People don't like being told that they're solving the wrong problem.
elihu 4y ago
I wonder what interesting features electric vehicles and farm equipment could have to power other devices? A lot of old jeeps used to have PTO ports on the transfer case, so you could use the jeep engine to power machinery. I suppose you could do the same thing with modern vehicles, at the cost of some mechanical complexity. A more interesting option on EVs would be a big switch to disconnect the 3-phase AC motor from the motor controller, and route the power to an external plug with three conductors and some sort of control interface. The idea would be to use the car's motor controller as a programmable power supply for just about anything. You could have it generate normal 50 or 60 hz AC power (single phase, double phase, or 3-phase) at any voltage up to the pack voltage, or it could supply DC, or it could act as the power supply for an arc welder, or it could act as a motor controller for just about any kind of motor (with the control interface used to update the motor controller on the motor position, for motors that require that sort of thing). There's this problem generally with electrically-powered devices like electric lawn mowers and chain saws, that they're limited to about 2 horsepower because that's about the limit of what you can send over a 15-20 amp circuit at 115v AC. 220V AC gives you more power for things like big table saws, but there isn't really a standard for 220v household extension cords, as far as I know. But a typical EV motor controller (or the battery directly) can supply hundreds of horsepower worth of electrical energy. It's kind of scary, actually, when you think about it. You could power a lot of stuff with that, if we just had interconnection standards.
- solraph 4y ago
  > but there isn't really a standard for 220v household extension cords Well, there is there in the rest of the world, outside of North America. Most of the power plugs are 220v-240v @ 10-16 amp (depending on country, plug, etc). Picking an existing standard would work here I think.
  - p_l 4y ago
    There are also standards for 3-phase industrial power plugs etc.
- lnsru 4y ago
  3,7 kW extension cords are very normal in Europe. Of course, only brand names can do that. Asian manufacturers cheat and do 2-2,5 kW cabling. With 3 phases 11 kW is also no big deal. Older equipment had this type of interface. Modern tools use only 2 phases.
naruvimama 4y ago
_57jb 4y ago
This excites me. I've been hearing much more lately about how crude our approach to farming/agriculture is and how counterproductive current methods are. No-till, carbon farming, cover crops, etc. which spend more effort in creating a balanced ecosystem where crops are incorporated versus placing product, extracting value, leaving nutrient deficient earth behind. There's an interesting documentary called Biggest Little Farm where a couple tries to strike that balance although not focused on tech/automation. This article bringing in the resourcefulness and ingenuity of farmers with tech alongside that balanced ecosystem has worldwide impact.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  > how crude our approach to farming/agriculture is and how counterproductive current methods are Where are you getting your information from? Certainly not from modern farmers.
  - _57jb 4y ago
    10 years of R&D good enough? I'm not claiming there aren't advances but there's a long tail to implementing new things. Crude as in there are many forms of existing processes we have inherited and continue on. No different than any other industry but this one has been linked to profound impacts on a multitude of outcomes that affect many in more immediate ways.
elliotpage 4y ago
I would love to see iFixIt do a teardown of one of these tractors.
hellohowareu 4y ago
Open Source Ecology is currently on its 7th generation prototype of open source tractor: https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ "LifeTrac is a low-cost, multipurpose open source tractor. It serves as a workhorse backbone for many of GVCS technologies. We are currently on the 7th prototype – see LifeTrac Genealogy. The highlight of our design is that it is a modular design that allows for a high degree of modification and flexibility – such as scalable frames, interchangeable power units, quick connect wheel drive, and plug-and-play hydraulic power that allows for a driver and remote."
sul_tasto 4y ago
I wish we had open source options for household appliances. It would be the best response to the planned obsolescence companies currently employ.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I'm certain there's a niche in replacing the dmca protected garbage wholesale with a completely different board on some appliances. Wish I had the capital to try.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    People do this all the time, but it's not marketed. When the control board for my washer died, I came across a bunch of Arduino projects to replace controls with new hardware. As an embedded systems engineer, I even considered designing a replacement controller, but that thought died the instant I found one for $30 on eBay. That, and the reality of the situation is that when I can buy a replacement washer for $400, I have no incentive to spend dozens of hours redesigning a control. Maybe if I was bored and wanted to create an OSHW project that maybe 5 other people on the planet would use.
- voxadam 4y ago
  I've long wanted to do something similar to David Tulloh's Linux powered microwave.[0] [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/674877/ https://lwn.net/Articles/674877/
- huiiuiujiojio 4y ago
  Could you expound on this? In my mind there must ultimately be a manufacturer of a given product. Even if there was a completely open source blender, for example, manufacturers would be incentivized to make it in such a way that it still breaks, unlike code where there is no factory and no resources being spent after the design (code) is finished.
  - WaxProlix 4y ago
    Open source and open spec parts can be manufactured by anyone with a jigsaw, 3d printer, cnc machine, etc. You could walk into a maker space with $100 worth of materials and walk out with a repairable, maintainable blender or whatever that will last your lifetime, and your kids' lifetimes.

148 points by grej 4y ago

I mean, neat, but come back when you’ve got something with hundreds of horsepower that could serve as an actual alternative. It’s a bit ambitious to talk about that as a competitor to John Deere

Bilal_io 4y ago
Baby steps. You can't go from nothing to something very powerful in one step. This is an accomplishment worth celebrating, and nobody said that's it, we're done.
floatrock 4y ago
> but come back when you've got something with hundreds of [megabytes] that could serve as an actual... competitor to [IBM] For someone hanging out on hackernews with the name Christensen, I imagine you would have stumbled upon The Innovator's Dilemma by now. Tiny competitors disrupting established incumbents by playing a different game that is fundamentally incompatible with the incumbents' business model is the very story of tech disruption.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Having grown up driving tractors with hundreds of horsepower, it's not that. These projects are neat, but they are backyard gardening toys. If you wanted to build a tractor that competed, you could start perfectly fine with something big. You would need the kind of machine tools that many farmers have to repair their own equipment and the capital to build something big, but most of what you would need that a person of decent skill couldn't do themselves is available off the shelf. Someone could disrupt with a small scale competitor, but the place to start wouldn't look like a go-kart, it would look like this [1] 50-150 HP range, probably without a cab, with appropriate standard hitches, hydraulics, PTO, etc. You could learn lessons and scale from there. The couple of open source farming tractor things I've seen have been cute, but just not anything like what would actually compete, and there's no reason not to start with something that at least is in range. 1. https://www.caseih.com/northamerica/en-us/products/tractors/vestrum-series https://www.caseih.com/northamerica/en-us/products/tractors/...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    You don't need massive machines, you need a certain ratio of crops to labour and capital. If the go kart tractor allows experimentation with automation and presently difficult to automate farming methods or crops then it may be viable. It won't compete with the ten hectares of wheat needed for one person to earn a living wage even without other costs, but there might be a niche for produce rather than calorie crops that looks like 1000 gardens rather than a vast ocean of corn. Edit: Opened your link to the rather small tractors, this is what I had in mind with the one in the article being more along the lines of what the reprap was in the 2000s compared to a ratrig now.

conorcleary 4y ago

I often refer back to Open Source Ecology when agricultural hardware is brought up: https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-index/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-index/

Ancapistani 4y ago

It looks like a modern Farmall Cub to me. I like it!

Animats 4y ago

If you want a cheap lightweight tractor, there are plenty on Alibaba, starting around US$3500. But you're not going to pull full sized implements with them.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Shhh! People don't like being told that they're solving the wrong problem.

elihu 4y ago

I wonder what interesting features electric vehicles and farm equipment could have to power other devices? A lot of old jeeps used to have PTO ports on the transfer case, so you could use the jeep engine to power machinery. I suppose you could do the same thing with modern vehicles, at the cost of some mechanical complexity. A more interesting option on EVs would be a big switch to disconnect the 3-phase AC motor from the motor controller, and route the power to an external plug with three conductors and some sort of control interface. The idea would be to use the car's motor controller as a programmable power supply for just about anything. You could have it generate normal 50 or 60 hz AC power (single phase, double phase, or 3-phase) at any voltage up to the pack voltage, or it could supply DC, or it could act as the power supply for an arc welder, or it could act as a motor controller for just about any kind of motor (with the control interface used to update the motor controller on the motor position, for motors that require that sort of thing). There's this problem generally with electrically-powered devices like electric lawn mowers and chain saws, that they're limited to about 2 horsepower because that's about the limit of what you can send over a 15-20 amp circuit at 115v AC. 220V AC gives you more power for things like big table saws, but there isn't really a standard for 220v household extension cords, as far as I know. But a typical EV motor controller (or the battery directly) can supply hundreds of horsepower worth of electrical energy. It's kind of scary, actually, when you think about it. You could power a lot of stuff with that, if we just had interconnection standards.

solraph 4y ago
> but there isn't really a standard for 220v household extension cords Well, there is there in the rest of the world, outside of North America. Most of the power plugs are 220v-240v @ 10-16 amp (depending on country, plug, etc). Picking an existing standard would work here I think.
- p_l 4y ago
  There are also standards for 3-phase industrial power plugs etc.
lnsru 4y ago
3,7 kW extension cords are very normal in Europe. Of course, only brand names can do that. Asian manufacturers cheat and do 2-2,5 kW cabling. With 3 phases 11 kW is also no big deal. Older equipment had this type of interface. Modern tools use only 2 phases.

naruvimama 4y ago

_57jb 4y ago

This excites me. I've been hearing much more lately about how crude our approach to farming/agriculture is and how counterproductive current methods are. No-till, carbon farming, cover crops, etc. which spend more effort in creating a balanced ecosystem where crops are incorporated versus placing product, extracting value, leaving nutrient deficient earth behind. There's an interesting documentary called Biggest Little Farm where a couple tries to strike that balance although not focused on tech/automation. This article bringing in the resourcefulness and ingenuity of farmers with tech alongside that balanced ecosystem has worldwide impact.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> how crude our approach to farming/agriculture is and how counterproductive current methods are Where are you getting your information from? Certainly not from modern farmers.
- _57jb 4y ago
  10 years of R&D good enough? I'm not claiming there aren't advances but there's a long tail to implementing new things. Crude as in there are many forms of existing processes we have inherited and continue on. No different than any other industry but this one has been linked to profound impacts on a multitude of outcomes that affect many in more immediate ways.

elliotpage 4y ago

I would love to see iFixIt do a teardown of one of these tractors.

hellohowareu 4y ago

Open Source Ecology is currently on its 7th generation prototype of open source tractor: https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ "LifeTrac is a low-cost, multipurpose open source tractor. It serves as a workhorse backbone for many of GVCS technologies. We are currently on the 7th prototype – see LifeTrac Genealogy. The highlight of our design is that it is a modular design that allows for a high degree of modification and flexibility – such as scalable frames, interchangeable power units, quick connect wheel drive, and plug-and-play hydraulic power that allows for a driver and remote."

sul_tasto 4y ago

I wish we had open source options for household appliances. It would be the best response to the planned obsolescence companies currently employ.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
I'm certain there's a niche in replacing the dmca protected garbage wholesale with a completely different board on some appliances. Wish I had the capital to try.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  People do this all the time, but it's not marketed. When the control board for my washer died, I came across a bunch of Arduino projects to replace controls with new hardware. As an embedded systems engineer, I even considered designing a replacement controller, but that thought died the instant I found one for $30 on eBay. That, and the reality of the situation is that when I can buy a replacement washer for $400, I have no incentive to spend dozens of hours redesigning a control. Maybe if I was bored and wanted to create an OSHW project that maybe 5 other people on the planet would use.
voxadam 4y ago
I've long wanted to do something similar to David Tulloh's Linux powered microwave.[0] [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/674877/ https://lwn.net/Articles/674877/
huiiuiujiojio 4y ago
Could you expound on this? In my mind there must ultimately be a manufacturer of a given product. Even if there was a completely open source blender, for example, manufacturers would be incentivized to make it in such a way that it still breaks, unlike code where there is no factory and no resources being spent after the design (code) is finished.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  Open source and open spec parts can be manufactured by anyone with a jigsaw, 3d printer, cnc machine, etc. You could walk into a maker space with $100 worth of materials and walk out with a repairable, maintainable blender or whatever that will last your lifetime, and your kids' lifetimes.