Soldering Irons get hot... Dont touch them.

I know I've been a little slack the last few days and actually haven't done a blog for you for a while. As far as work on the farm goes I've been in a bit of a routine of sheep feeding and that's about it. So every second day I've been feeding out a bit of grain to our ewe mobs.

I've been a little consumed, in the last few days, with finishing my wiring on my airseeder switch box, and also repairs on the air seeder controller. That's why I hadn't gotten onto doing my blogs, I was having more fun in the evenings with my soldering iron. I've had reasonable success, after the first couple of attempts, at the wiring, haven't worked. But Now I've almost got it perfected. First major success was replacing a numeric LED display on the air seeder controller.

There's a few spare little number units just so you get a bit of an idea what I'm talking about. They are part of the display on the air seeder controller.

And on top there is the switching box that I've been working on. It basically works fully now. It will operate the airseeder clutch in and out with a flick of the switch (I went out to the air seeder and tested it and there were no problems this time). The power light (green 1 on the left) works as does the clutch in indicator (green on lower right) and clutch out indicator (red upper right). The only thing that isn't working properly yet is the alarm system that I've built into it, where and alarm sounds when the clutch isn't in the position that the switch says it should be. So I'll have to sus out the wiring again and see if there's any bad connections in there, or see if I can work out what I've done wrong this time. But overall I'm feeling good about the whole system. Cant wait to use it.

Another thing that I've been looking into in the last few days was upgrades to my GPS guidance. I mentioned in an earlier blog that I'm using a Trimble ezyguide plus. Well it is a very basic system, which I am happy to use, but the accuracy isn't always the best. There have been times where I'd get drift of over 1 metre between up and back passes. So I've been in contact with our local GPSag guy to see if we can improve this. I'm looking for 2cm accuracy pass for pass, but just an improvement. I'm also thinking about adding an ezysteer to the unit, that will actually steer the tractor as well. I may be able to get a cheaper 2nd hand unit, as most farmers would be upgrading from this basic level of guidance (well I hope they would be anyway - that way there may be some available). Other suggestions we discussed was a software upgade. I know I'd be able to download it off the net, but I don't think I'm that computer literate to work out how to do that. But Phill (GPSag guy)'s looking into it for me. Another option is a marine beacon antenna. They coast about $800 new. All just options at this stage. If you've used ezyguide plus and had this sort of drift problems I'd love you to leave a comment and tell me what you did about it.

Yesterday arvo (after sheep feeding in the morning) did a few hours shearing for our neighbours. They buy and sell alot of cross bread lambs and often want them shorn before selling. So I'm quite happy to help out. It's a Handy little bit of spare change. Exact details... there are 2 of us, we started at 1pm, did a run of shearing. I can't remember exactly how many I did... think it was about 36. Then port holed (shore the wool off under the tail that often gets dung stuck to it) about 63 - bout 10 to 15 mins worth.