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Farmers Struggling With High-Tech Farm Equipment
An anonymous reader writes: Farming is a difficult profession. One of the constants throughout the generations is that if you're working out in the field all day, machinery eventually breaks down. Farmers tend to deal with this harsh reality by becoming handy at basic repair — but that strategy is starting to fail in the digital age. Kyle Wiens, founder of iFixit, writes about the new difficulties in repairing your broken tractors and other equipment. Not only do you often need experience in computer software, but proprietary technology actively blocks you from making repairs.
"Dave asked me if there was some way to bypass a bum sensor while waiting for the repairman to show up. But fixing Dave's sensor problem required fiddling around in the tractor's highly proprietary computer system—the tractor's engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast. One hour later, I hopped back out of the cab of the tractor. Defeated. I was unable to breach the wall of proprietary defenses that protected the tECU like a fortress. I couldn't even connect to the computer. Because John Deere says I can't." Wiens also tells us about Farm Hack, a community that has sprung up to build a library of open source tools and knowledge for dealing with high-tech modification and repair in agriculture.
"Dave asked me if there was some way to bypass a bum sensor while waiting for the repairman to show up. But fixing Dave's sensor problem required fiddling around in the tractor's highly proprietary computer system—the tractor's engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast. One hour later, I hopped back out of the cab of the tractor. Defeated. I was unable to breach the wall of proprietary defenses that protected the tECU like a fortress. I couldn't even connect to the computer. Because John Deere says I can't." Wiens also tells us about Farm Hack, a community that has sprung up to build a library of open source tools and knowledge for dealing with high-tech modification and repair in agriculture.
As a current IT guy who grew up on a large farm in the middle of nowhere, I can confirm that this is true. I've seen the dramatic changes and advances that technology has brought to the agricultural world, and almost universally it has been implemented such that you don't really own what you really own. Proprietary software, interfaces, programs, hardware -- you name it. And...it's not just tractors, combines, or other mechanical items -- it includes software/hardware to automate feeding lots, climate controls, GPS integration, etc. There's little to no open source, open specifications, API availability, or comprehensible documentation available. It's a clusterfscking nightmare, and requires you to take anything that breaks or malfunctions to a certified dealer to have them (and only them) work on it for whatever they deem the price to be that day.
Now there are some really amazing advancements that have come along in agriculture over the past 20 - 30 years, but in many ways technology is turning the clock back on American agriculture and making it into the modern indentured servant model, especially when you add in all the BS that Monsanto has brought/caused in the agriculture world. I feel bad for my family as well as other farmers today.
This isn't actually the case. I know of no Federal regulation that disallows adjustments by a particular party. All that the regulations require is that there be no unauthorized modifications to the system. They don't place the onus on anyone to prevent such modifications in any particular way.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
This is bullshit. The manufacturer wants nothing open because it'll commoditize the stuff that rakes them boatloads of money. Regulation has nothing to do with it. The owner/operator of the equipment is responsible for maintaining it with adherence to emissions regulations. How she does it, is up to them.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Yeah, because an industry with one of the highest equipment-related death/injury rates for its workers and habitually and flagrantly skirting protections designed to protect the public from harm is one that should be allowed to regulate itself. GREAT IDEA!
We have have people indoctrinated up to the eyeballs on Slashdot now. Somehow these one trick ponies are going to link whatever the problem is to government regulation.
Dongles are cheap. The information they give you is fairly useless in diagnosing specific hardware faults, sensor codes, etc unless you have the factory proprietary software.
Want to modulate the ABS module to purge air and replace the brake fluid? Sorry.
Want to see which wheel is giving you the TPMS low pressure error even though they are all properly inflated? Sorry.
Want to see specifically why a code is being thrown that disengages the AWD? Sorry.
Well, sorry for me unless I get a Tech2 scanner maybe for $1500 used, or $4000 new off fleabay.
I spent nearly 15 years in IT before returning to the family farm to work with my brothers. We farm several thousand acres of irrigated land with some large, expensive machines, so I have some experience in this. This article really hits home for me. Forgive some of the jargon, but this is slashdot; you can deal with it.
Coming from the open source world, computer technology in farming, both in the machines themselves, and the software farmers use, is like stepping back in time 20 years or more. Farm software is a niche market, and companies are pretty jealous of their profits. So mapping software is very expensive and interoperability is a bit difficult. Right now I can pull maps off my machines (Case, John Deere), but they each use different native formats so if I want to do any work in QGIS I have to use the company's individual software (which ironically enough is DRMd even though it comes for free with the machine) to export the data in SHAPE format. Software packages like the SMS mapper can read some manufacturers' data files directly because they licensed the formats. But there's very little info out there on hacking these formats and very few open source hackers know enough about farming and these systems to bring expertise to bear.
Even worse, all the companies are talking about cloud-based mapping solutions, but that's even more proprietary and closed.
Companies talk about "open standards" but what they really mean is they export SHAPE files from a computer program. It's really frustrating, but with interest in UAVs, perhaps people will finally crack this barrier.
As to the machines themselves, there are a number of issues. One is government regulations. Adjusting the timing as the farmer in the article wanted to do is extremely illegal and can get you a huge fine from the EPA if you are caught, which you will be. Because unlike in the automotive world, there aren't a any third-party repair shops with access to the parts, let alone diagnostic equipment. Apparently the EPA requires the manufacturer to report any deviations from the the approved program, and they levy fines. Sounds orwellian, but the EPA doesn't mess around when it comes to pollution regs (and I'm okay with that in theory). Suppose the manufacturers want to cover themselves.
Someone asked why a company can't spring up to develop hackable machines? There are efforts to this effect.
http://opensourceecology.org/
But for larger scale farming, it's harder. In the case of engines, the EPA would simply never allow them to market if the parameters that cause an engine to meet EPA regs are allowed to be changed. Regulatory capture has made modern diesels so expensive to develop now, including licensing patented pollution control technologies like the urea injection systems, that it's cheaper for companies to buy an existing engine than to develop their own. So even if I started a hackable tractor company I'd still need to use an engine with an extremely proprietary ECU, and would have to license canbus info to simply connect a transmission to the engine.
The other part of machines that is jealously guarded is the main canbus that links everything on the tractor. We're talking engine control, transmission control, hydraulic remotes, cab systems, and most importantly, the GPS receiver, guidance computer, and steering valve. The commands that flow on this bus are not yet encrypted (they will be soon, starting in cars I predict), but they are highly proprietary and protected by NDAs. You'd think that with a modern tractor I could take anyone's GPS receiver, mate it with anyone's guidance computer, and control any tractor's steering. Well it's not like that. On John Deere, for example, if I want to use anything other than GreenStar for GPS and guidance (a $10-$20k touch by the way, plus yearly fees for RTK), I have to physically replace the steering valve system with one that the 3rd party system is compatible with. There was a company that rev
It is both. Some manufacturers use the added regulations (take DEF and DPF mandates for example for diesel emissions) in order to ensure repeat business for their repair shops, as well as planned obsolescence when the ECU dies and there isn't another to be found, as it was an ASIC that was fabbed only for a span of 2-3 model years and even an ECM firmware upgrade wouldn't change that.
The Feds mandated things like nonadjustable governors so one can't adjust the RPM of some items unless done manually by twisting the throttle rod. However, some companies are happy to take that even further to ensure people come back to get stuff fixed.
There is blowback to this. For example, a RV refrigerator that runs on propane made 10-15 years ago which uses a pilot light can cost more than a new refrigerator, just because it requires no 12 volt current to keep the contents cold, while newer models often have issues with the control board.
How does this get fixed? With state and federal governments still looking to add more regulations compounded with companies that want their own "DRM" to keep the next quarter looking good, the only real solution will be for relatively small startups to hit the market with simple products that do the same thing, but don't have all the bells and whistles. For fridges, companies like Unique Gas Products come to mind, who may not have appliances that have the latest 5000 pixel count in the LCD screen... but keep the contents in the fridge cold without issue.
The future will probably wind up people having to fudge to get around various regulations. For example, the EPA ban on wood stoves will just mean that a building gets built with a propane stove, which gets swapped out for a wood stove the second the inspectors leave. If this isn't the case, there will be a heavy market for people to purchase jailbreaks for their appliances and vehicles... with bounties going up as steep as what was paid for access to root on the latest Samsung devices.