Right to Repair

[John C.]

Just got clued into this article on Wired magazine.

https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/

You can tell the writer doesn't have a good grasp of what a repair is and what changing or modifying software is.

 

[ianjoub]

Been dealing with that for years with cars. The MFG's want to own their product from womb to grave.

 

[Wes J]

The automotive industry is way ahead of everyone else though. Pretty much every state requires car repair info to be made available for a reasonable cost. If you choose to, and have the right equipment, you can log in to any auto OEM website and program any module or ECM. All done without a trip to a dealer or "authorized" service person.

Stationary industrial equipment is even worse. No schematics, PLCs are locked out, etc. I've worked on $1 million plus equipment with service manuals that wouldn't fill 10 pages. It's a joke.

 

[John C.]

Funny thing is that California is the state that required OBD on cars which forced the auto manufacturers to take that path. Now the same issue happens on ag machines and they look the other way.

 

[f311fr1]

Because most law makers have no idea where or how their food comes from. Every Senator and Rep should have to jntern on a small family farm for 6 months after they get elected.

 

[DMiller]

I remember when OBD and OBD II were established, Cadillac was one of GMs big holdouts as their digital system was well ahead of the remaining makes. Ford and Chrysler systems were ALWAYS three steps behind until that advent of diagnostics. Foreign was just foreign.

Farm equipment, off road machines even CAT to an extent are hard to dig up information on, some of the older machines are easier to get info on as the Big producers do not want the hassles of training newbies on their old junk so have released some of it. Dealt with large companies as SCADA and SEIMENS as to industrial computerized controls, so many variations on a theme, so many variables as to how to measure process stream information, all too many think THEY are the only ones to be able to see inside the Magic Genie.

 

[wlhequipment]

The nerds will respond. The lawmakers might get all legal with copyright this and can't modify that blah blah blah, but push too hard, and the community will push back. It won't be long before JD's software is reverse engineered, and there will be a variety of gadgets and gizmos on the market to bypass the *ahem* law. This type of stuff has been going on in the automotive and IT industries for years. Heavy equipment is just a little behind the curve, as far as that goes, that's all. There are no mysteries anymore, someone has it figured out already I bet. Case in point - look at Auto Integrity, that's a software you can buy to get into your car's computer system. I use it for my Dodge. Forscan for Ford Powerstrokes too, hell that was even free, you just had to buy the cable to plug into your computer. Someone figured that stuff out, it won't be long for this either, I'm guessing.

 

[Bumpsteer]

From what I've seen, it doesn't bother some farmers to call the dealer for a service call.

They don't have the time to chase down issues, especially electrical ones. Other's don't have the skill set to repair newer equipment.

Doesn't mean I agree with what the mfgr's are doing.....

Ed

 

[Birken Vogt]

Farmers might be behind the curve a little because they are generally quite a bit older as a population. I suspect as this next generation really gets into it that has a bit of a hacking background things will really change.

Of course manufacturers could get really nasty and encrypt everything in a black box so there is no way to modify at all, but at some point somebody will come out with an entire replacement ECM if the mfrs. get ridiculous enough.

I already install ECM-like devices on simpler engines that have programmable inputs for mag pickups, pressure and temp senders, etc. And there are hot rod companies out there with aftermarket ignition drivers. Combine those two items and replace "ignition" with "piezo injector" and the rest is just software.

 

[Wes J]

There is already Ukrainian software available to do whatever you want to your Deere. It's already been hacked. Other companies like Texa can do most diagnostic things required to get you running. But, folks would like to buy the real software from Mother Green, and I don't blame them. You can buy Cummins Insite, Cat ET, Ford IDS, etc. Why not the Deere software?

Don't worry, if there's a way to do anything cheaper, farmers will be the first to figure it out.

 

[heymccall]

It's not just about "farmers". It's about repair shops, too. If I, with a repair shop, can't interface with a machine, I can't repair some things on it. If they succeed (deere), soon, you'll have to take your Ford to a Ford garage instead of the local repair shop.

 

[Birken Vogt]

It wouldn't be quite so bad if the dealer shops were always competent at their work, but when they are just as bad or worse than one-tooth shade tree Billy Bob, and Billy Bob is not able to take a try at it for lack of software, that is when it gets frustrating.

Especially when it is a software bug that is the root of the problem in the first place, and there is an update out to fix it, but the dealer is the only one allowed to install it, and charge plenty for that, if they even know about it.

 

[Crummy]

A little tidbit I picked up from a friend that works overseas.
That "pirated" or "hacked" software you see? Maybe not. [Some] foreign markets say "hey, you don't have dealers here in our country and we won't let you so you have to give us the stuff to work on the equipment to sell it here". Ergo 'permanent' or '10 year' dealer licenses. Sooooo enterprising persons in that country that have an eBay account. Don't know how true that is but from what I've seen with other things that have been given away to produce cheaper or get into overseas markets it wouldn't surprise me at all. I just read something on hydraulic fittings and there's a factory overseas that when they come off the line almost literally some go into a Gates box, some into a Parker box, some into an unbranded box.

 

[ianjoub]

 

[John C.]

The issue of fixing your own machine is being made moot in a lot of ways by the diagnostic software being designed into the machines to start with. I don't know of any heavy equipment manufactured today that needs software and a laptop plugged in to enable troubleshooting. Cat, Hitachi/Deere, Komatsu, Kobelco, and so on and so forth has the diagnostics. The real issue is finding out how to access it. That issue is on the dealer networks nearly completely. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, they bought into the management style of 100% absorption. That style split the branches into three profit centers; sales, service and parts. The absorption part meant that the entire costs of operating the branches was handled by service and parts. Service departments are split into three modes of income. They are revenue, warranty and internal. Most of the work that dealer service departments perform are warranty and internal which is money that just goes around in a circle inside the company. Revenue is the only real money they make and a bad reputation will kill that pretty quickly. So what do they do? They do what they can to limit the flow of information.

 

[Sberry]

I didnt think this would be interesting but it was. We used a code reader and internet on a job the other day, it worked right, as little as I know was able to figure out what the problem was and as fussy as we were about training the loom for an install we miss a wire.

 

[DMiller]

Wait til all these machines get into CAN BUS wiring systems, then its all about varied signals and control voltages in duration timing. Multiple processors all interacting with each other, for SIMPLEST Tasks.

 

[Sberry]

Some is good. Once they got past failed fuel pumps the Ford injection system worked really well, fairly simple and reliable
The later ones seems like they added a lot for rather little gain. How much crap can hook to cruise control and tail light.

 

[Spud_Monkey]

Some is good. Once they got past failed fuel pumps the Ford injection system worked really well, fairly simple and reliable
The later ones seems like they added a lot for rather little gain. How much crap can hook to cruise control and tail light.

Simple, it has to be recorded for insurance purposes too and able to be freeze framed up to certain duration before accident. Did you have cruise control on when you drove down icy roads, did you use a turn signal to make that turn that the officer gave you a ticket for, those are some examples. Not just accidents and tickets but for data mining for whatever a 3rd party can use it for from autonomous vehicles to learn how to drive to getting a ticket without getting pulled over cause ti was logged in the data sent to local PD, kind of like EDL's for truckers on how long they have driven.

 

[John C.]

They require data reorders in passenger jets but not in automobiles and trucks. I used to do loss investigations for insurance adjusters and occasionally had to look at some oddball auto accidents. They were usually the ones where a lady starts her car in the morning and puts it in reverse and it accelerates out of the garage, across the street and into the neighbor's house. They were usually thought to be caused by a high heeled shoe stuck under the throttle. Funny thing is the couple of them that I did, I found the cruise control to be on when the car was brought to the repair facility. A couple of other "accidents" I checked out would have been nice to know if there was a memory but it wouldn't have been any good. The repair facilities erased all the codes as soon as the tow truck dropped the wreck off. Even the throttle issue that was faked on the Toyota cars and trucks couldn't be proven because there was no provision for a black box memory. After all that noise in congress and many government circles, the talk of a black box just disappeared.