Custom built tractors

[FarmerAlex]

Has anyone on here customised their own tractor in some way? What features are the bees knees?
Which electronic gadgets are really worth their weight in gold? Which ones are not much chop?

If you could have a feature in a tractor what would it be?

Cheers

[stumpjumper83]

hummm... large farm tractors need to start sharing with their over the road breathern. Air compressors, external air powered brakes, & jake brakes come to mind first. Euro tractors need to start sharing with american ones in the front three point hitch systems as well as the quick hitch drawbar systems.

Both could benefit imensly from hybrid tech, electric powered pto, electric impliment hydraulics, regenerative braking...

[Richardjw~]

I guess its all down to cost.......the manufacturers will put it on there if the customer is prepared to pay for it

[FarmerAlex]

HID Lighting is a very great improvement over the old lights. Also there are new LED lights making life a lot easier with no changing of bulbs etc.

The biggest issues i have seen coming from newer tractors is that they all have electrical gremlins.
Is there a place for a tractor that can do all of the calibration by itself? i.e. no mechanic with a laptop out for 5 mins to set something up.

With the electric PTO, would you prefer the implement to have the electric motor on it, and you just hook up the leads? Similar to several 3 phase leads?

Cheers Alex

[Jon S]

The one gadget that I wouldn't want to be without is GPS guided auto-steering.

[stumpjumper83]

You need to have the electric motor on the tractor for cost effectiveness and interchangability with different equipment. Who wants to permently mount an electric motor on the rotary mower that they only use 10 days a year?

[Jon S]

stumpjumper, that's why I use the EZ-Guide system. The motor mounts on the steering column and can be removed in less than a minute to then be installed in another tractor, provided each tractor has the required bracket.

http://www.trimble.com/agriculture/ez-steer.aspx?dtID=overview

[stumpjumper83]

Yeah jon, I used to work for b&h around 2005. Helped out for a fields days thing and we had them there.

Its really neat to see the system on a menonite steel wheel special...

[Jon S]

Its really neat to see the system on a menonite steel wheel special...

Somehow I'm thinking that the technology and belief system might be in disagreement with one another there. lol.