In The Cab

Maybe we should just start this one out with the video. Again probably easier to watch here. When I say that Lance is the go to guy I mean that quite literally. My husband has spent more time talking to him lately than he has to me and when he talks to other, far off, experts about this stuff they always say that he ought to talk to Lance.

So we have the base (NTRIP server) that receives the satellite signal and sends it to the server (NTRIP caster) that the tractor (NTRIP client) connects to in order to send the data it collects and receive direction. And by direction I mean that some of that stuff in the cab actually steers the tractor.

Speaking of steering the tractor. The factory steering wheel comes off and the EZ Pilot attaches to  the steering column with it’s own special steering wheel. It’s connected to the rest of the stuff that gives it direction. There is a receiver on the roof that gets the satellite signal and probably an external antenna to improve the cell signal. A computer screen to display the pertinent information with a blue tooth receiver to connect to a cell phone, or possibly a Raspberry Pi.

I keep talking about Raspberry Pi and forget that they aren’t a household name. A Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer, about the size of two decks of cards on top of each other, that runs about forty dollars, last I knew. They can be programmed to do countless really cool things. Looking at their site I see them used as a baby monitor, a book scanner and for games. Open source all the way! ( As I type on my Mac 😉  Some day I’ll be cool enough to use Linux) We use one to watch TV, movies and stuff off of our FreeNAS, the last really cool computer project my brilliant husband took on, and one to catch podcasts. That’s all for now but only for lack of time not a lack of ideas and uses. Raspberry pi are what schools would be using if they really wanted to teach students how to use computers, that’s what they are designed for, instead of teaching them to use face book and twitter and, horror of horrors, use windows (I refuse to capitalize that). But then they would have to have teachers who knew how to use a computer. (Speaking as a person who can barely work a computer and fully knowing we would not be able to watch TV past the next update if something were to happen to my husband. And, yes dear, that is why we would miss you ;P) That was kind of fun, but I digress.

While I tried to figure out the cab portion of this and was busy with life, the parts came! And he began the install on the tractor.