Chad,

We're not getting away from the hydraulic. In fact the Gfx design focuses on hydraulic.  We are shifting from hydraulic to air on the Pluribus which are not sold on Vision bars because the single acting airbag is ok for mounting on toolbars which lift at the end of the row and don't need the double acting lift as we do on our Vision bars.

The single-acting Pluribus airbag is much less expensive than the hydraulic Pluribus downpressure system.

The airbag also allows customers running John Deere planters with airbags to plug their existing Deere in-cab air system directly into our Pluribus airbag system with just the addition of a hardware store air line quick coupler. This gives you in-cab control at a much lower cost than hydraulic.

The hydraulic has a number of advantages in some applications such as the Gfx. When you come up to a wet spot with a 36 row planter at 6 mph and you want to raise the row cleaners you want them to come up right now - not 5 minutes from now.  There are also various future control advantages to hydraulics over air. We have some issued and pending patent coverage on some very interesting things for the future.

There are reasons trucks use airbag suspensions rather than hydraulics.

There are reasons aircraft have traditionally used hydraulic controls rather than air.

Jim at Dawn