Brand-new kit, once the new product gremlins have been banished, is usually reliable, with IsoBus control systems providing seamless integration between tractor and implement.
Roll on 13 years, and the picture isn't quite so perfect. Alongside writing about machinery, I have a partial involvement in keeping an increasingly aged British-built drill functioning, which now uses an IsoBus control system almost old enough to apply for a provisional driving licence.
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When it works, it's excellent, and usually, when it misbehaves, the solution, due to cable rubbing or rodent nibbling, can be solved with some solder and heat shrink, or a box of Wago connectors. The start of this year's drilling campaign includes a repetitive communication failure between an ECU and the tractor, something potentially harder to fix and harder to find parts for.
When this finally dies, I'm not sure how to make the machine work again, because it would require a mechanical workaround to avoid electronics while communicating with an increasingly complicated tractor.
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I cannot be the only machinery user thinking this, as we all will keep kit longer, and with changing weather, require a wider range of cultivation and establishment options to suit an increasingly volatile climate.
Older kit might be fully depreciated and provide just the right tool for the job, as well as being mechanically endlessly repairable, but software and electronics are a bit more of an unknown. When it's good, it's great; when it's bad, it's evil.
