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Grand Rapids, MI | Ray, I have not worked with the insight, but was involved with a client helping to put a PFAdvantage on their JD9750 and I can tell you that nothing is compatible, in fact probably took a bit longer than an older machine because of the need to remove some of the greenstar stuff that was already on there. That being said, Ag Leader does a great job with their directions, and knows what parts you need to switch out to move to a new combine, etc. We still had to cut holes in the clean grain elevator, run all new wires, etc. though.
As for the problems, yea I can see that. JD has been historically very poor with communications to their users. They seem to have taken the stance that they are going to put out almost nothing but advertising hype directly to growers, then make you go to a dealer if you want to get any real info. The problem is most of the dealers don't seem to know what is going on with this stuff either, I don't know if that is Deeres fault or the dealers, I suspect some of both.
Having said that, I have also had terrible problems with an Ag Leader PFAdvantage with another client. After 2 years of changing firmware, losing yield data, etc. I think they finally figured out it was a harware issue of some sort. From my experience and talking to others, I think this type of major problem is rare with Ag Leader, but they are certainly not immune from problems.
All this being said, I would reccommend for you to stick with the Deere stuff. I agree with Ted that the GS2 shows great promise, and if you have mostly Deere equipment, which it sounds like you do, I think this will still be your best bet. Two years ago I would not have made this same recommendation. If you have GS1 already, I would not recommend that you go to GS2 however until they get the bugs worked out, it should have been in beta this year...most farms I know that have it feel like they are beta testing this year, only JD isn't giving them the support that would come with beta testing. If Deere finally gets GS2 up to speed, gives their 3rd party vendors the information they need to program into it, and open up some direct no BS lines of communication, it could be the best deal out there. I am currently telling my clients to hold with what they have for a year and see how Deere handles the current problems they are having. | |
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questions about Ag Leader equipment in green machines
