3 ms·

This is the way if we can ensure manufacturing of the parts. It won’t catch on but it would be awesome to have “base” tractors that are mechanical and predictab

This is the way if we can ensure manufacturing of the parts. It won’t catch on but it would be awesome to have “base” tractors that are mechanical and predictable. Then you slap on whatever software on top that helps (automation, etc). But they need to be decoupled imo.

godzillabrennus 6mo ago
This is what a "bobcat" has become for UGV startups. It's a low tech proven platform that you can basically modify with attachments to do a lot of UGV work.
- idiotsecant 6mo ago
  UGV?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - barbazoo 6mo ago
    From AI > A UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that operates on the ground without a human driver onboard.
rolph 6mo ago
i have a farmall hand cranked tractor, going on 90 years old, so far its been rubber parts, and clutch pads. as far as auto mation goes, thats how implements used to work. it was a tracter/thresher/combine. then a bale counter is slapped on then maybe row sighting or guidance, etc. if your really snazzy, the implement is actually mapping the soil for moisture, or rough composistion and holding data to use in reformulating or notating your current cultural plans, i.e. supplemental spot feeding and irrigation. actual agricultural needs, not just fluff.
- greedo 6mo ago
  And how many acres are you farming on it? Today's world of agriculture is much higher tech-based (for many good reasons, primarily yield) than back in the horse and buggy days of farming.
  - rolph 6mo ago
    5.75; 7.5; and 42.6.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    I know of a forklift that's pushing 80 and still used in a lumber yard (i.e. a material handling centric workplace) Other than ~30min it takes to teach an employee to drive manual it doesn't do anything worse than the modern ones it works alongside and it does a handful of minor things much better by virtue of predating OSHA.
    - mulmen 6mo ago
      What does it do better by predating OSHA? Are there liability concerns or does it have just enough safety to be insured economically?
      - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        Wasn't designed with the assumption that when someone gets hurt lawsuits and fines could/would fly and so there's a lot less of the manufacturer covering it's ass in the design. There's nothing to keep you from putting it on two wheels and the transition from on the ground to off the ground is pretty graceful and operator friendly whereas the newer lifts rely on a pressure release valve to keep them from lifting that much and (presumably) because they were always expected to be far from ragged edge their weight distribution is not really proper for that. The counterweight is substantially taller so how hard it pushes down is reduces more quickly as the lift comes up so it lifts tire further (and is more likely to dump the load or go over). This also means the old lift has a way lower ass pucker factor when doing stuff at max height. The real nuisance is when braking though. Yeah you "shouldn't" brake with the load up but operators who get good will raise the load at speed as they are coming in to put a pallet of stuff on top of another pallet of stuff and then when they brake it can get sketchy. The new lifts do corner much better unloaded though so I guess you could be much faster zipping through a warehouse on a new lift (but what workplace would permit that? And top speeds are about the same so there's no benefit in a big outdoor workplace like say an airport or shipyard). There's no seat switch or other safety interlocks so you aren't putting a ton of wear on it if you're constantly getting out to fiddle with stuff. This also means you can do "unsafe" things like stand beside it and wrangle something and just reach in and make the mast go up and down. While in a textbook world this is "bad" and you "should only pick pallets" and "everything should be strapped to the pallet" in the real world you make all that back and more because it means you can use the forklift as a glorified engine hoist/shop crane without a helper. Hook and chain operations are made much safer/more reliable by this too since the operator can be sure things are good and is not tempted to half ass it to save the time of getting back out. Sure you could always add a helper but that's dangerous too because one person doing stuff near equipment and one person running equipment opens the door to miscommunication related injury that can't really happen among one person. I'm sure "at scale" the new lift is safer, but safer for who? In what operating context? How big is the difference?
barbazoo 6mo ago
I was assuming the same. This might be fine for a small setup but I'd imagine all the digitization shenanigans was done so efficiency could increase. I imagine for large scale operations this would be like replacing your steam engine with a horse.
dmbche 6mo ago
Could even nationalise the base tractor factory...
- jagged-chisel 6mo ago
  Whoa there, M{r,s}. Socialist! Can’t have any of our democratic infrastructure near that crazy idea! (/s)
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  Whoops, I hope you are not a naturalized citizen of the US.

godzillabrennus 6mo ago

This is what a "bobcat" has become for UGV startups. It's a low tech proven platform that you can basically modify with attachments to do a lot of UGV work.

idiotsecant 6mo ago
UGV?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- barbazoo 6mo ago
  From AI > A UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that operates on the ground without a human driver onboard.

rolph 6mo ago

i have a farmall hand cranked tractor, going on 90 years old, so far its been rubber parts, and clutch pads. as far as auto mation goes, thats how implements used to work. it was a tracter/thresher/combine. then a bale counter is slapped on then maybe row sighting or guidance, etc. if your really snazzy, the implement is actually mapping the soil for moisture, or rough composistion and holding data to use in reformulating or notating your current cultural plans, i.e. supplemental spot feeding and irrigation. actual agricultural needs, not just fluff.

greedo 6mo ago
And how many acres are you farming on it? Today's world of agriculture is much higher tech-based (for many good reasons, primarily yield) than back in the horse and buggy days of farming.
- rolph 6mo ago
  5.75; 7.5; and 42.6.
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  I know of a forklift that's pushing 80 and still used in a lumber yard (i.e. a material handling centric workplace) Other than ~30min it takes to teach an employee to drive manual it doesn't do anything worse than the modern ones it works alongside and it does a handful of minor things much better by virtue of predating OSHA.
  - mulmen 6mo ago
    What does it do better by predating OSHA? Are there liability concerns or does it have just enough safety to be insured economically?
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      Wasn't designed with the assumption that when someone gets hurt lawsuits and fines could/would fly and so there's a lot less of the manufacturer covering it's ass in the design. There's nothing to keep you from putting it on two wheels and the transition from on the ground to off the ground is pretty graceful and operator friendly whereas the newer lifts rely on a pressure release valve to keep them from lifting that much and (presumably) because they were always expected to be far from ragged edge their weight distribution is not really proper for that. The counterweight is substantially taller so how hard it pushes down is reduces more quickly as the lift comes up so it lifts tire further (and is more likely to dump the load or go over). This also means the old lift has a way lower ass pucker factor when doing stuff at max height. The real nuisance is when braking though. Yeah you "shouldn't" brake with the load up but operators who get good will raise the load at speed as they are coming in to put a pallet of stuff on top of another pallet of stuff and then when they brake it can get sketchy. The new lifts do corner much better unloaded though so I guess you could be much faster zipping through a warehouse on a new lift (but what workplace would permit that? And top speeds are about the same so there's no benefit in a big outdoor workplace like say an airport or shipyard). There's no seat switch or other safety interlocks so you aren't putting a ton of wear on it if you're constantly getting out to fiddle with stuff. This also means you can do "unsafe" things like stand beside it and wrangle something and just reach in and make the mast go up and down. While in a textbook world this is "bad" and you "should only pick pallets" and "everything should be strapped to the pallet" in the real world you make all that back and more because it means you can use the forklift as a glorified engine hoist/shop crane without a helper. Hook and chain operations are made much safer/more reliable by this too since the operator can be sure things are good and is not tempted to half ass it to save the time of getting back out. Sure you could always add a helper but that's dangerous too because one person doing stuff near equipment and one person running equipment opens the door to miscommunication related injury that can't really happen among one person. I'm sure "at scale" the new lift is safer, but safer for who? In what operating context? How big is the difference?

barbazoo 6mo ago

I was assuming the same. This might be fine for a small setup but I'd imagine all the digitization shenanigans was done so efficiency could increase. I imagine for large scale operations this would be like replacing your steam engine with a horse.

dmbche 6mo ago

Could even nationalise the base tractor factory...

jagged-chisel 6mo ago
Whoa there, M{r,s}. Socialist! Can’t have any of our democratic infrastructure near that crazy idea! (/s)
rootusrootus 6mo ago
Whoops, I hope you are not a naturalized citizen of the US.