=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3109/paper10
|storemode=property
|title=Research of the diagnostic parameters of the electronic control system HORSCH sowing complexes
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3109/paper10.pdf
|volume=Vol-3109
|authors=Oleh Sukach,Victor Shevchuk,Yuriy Gabriel
}}
==Research of the diagnostic parameters of the electronic control system HORSCH sowing complexes==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3109/paper10.pdf
Research of the diagnostic parameters of the electronic control
system HORSCH sowing complexes
Oleh Sukach1, Victor Shevchuk1 and Yuriy Gabriel1
1
Lviv National Agrarian University, V. Velykoho, 1, Dublyany, 80381, Ukraine
Abstract
A training stand has been developed, which completely simulates the operation of the
electronic control system of the drill. It is expedient to use the training stand for training of
experts on operation of sowing machines, its use allows to model various malfunctions of
electronic system, to investigate more thoroughly possible ways of diagnostics and repair.
The proposed method of diagnostics of the electronic control system is to determine the basic
parameters of the electronic components. To do this, with the help of an oscilloscope taken
oscillograms of the main sensors of the drill in different modes of operation. The reference
values of the oscillograms of the information signals of serviceable components can be
compared with the parameters of the sensor signals of each individual sowing section. This
method makes it impossible to incorrectly replace a working sensor, or receive incorrect signals
from the sensors in case of damage to the sensor itself or its power supply circuit or information
wires.
During the testing of this method, its high efficiency was found when testing optical seeding
sensors. It is advisable to check the components of the electronic control system for precision
seeders. This allows you to ensure high quality sowing due to the correct operation of the
sowing control system.
Keywords 1
Sowing complex, electronic control system of the seeder, training stand, diagnostics
1. Introduction
Sowing complexes are characterized by high standards of technological efficiency, productivity and
quality of manufacture [1]. The use of sowing complexes provides a significant reduction in sowing
time. The main trends in the improvement of such machines include, first of all, preparation and leveling
of the soil, formation of the seedbed and its compaction, rolling of crops, application of fertilizers within
one technological operation. The next areas of improvement are the uniformity and accuracy of sowing
seeds, as well as increasing the speed of the unit [2 5].
Simultaneous provision of a large number of agro-technological requirements leads to the need to
use complex technological and structural systems in the development of agricultural machinery. In
addition, a large number of integrated interconnected systems require knowledge of the principles of
their operation, configuration and maintenance [4, 5].
2. The purpose of the study
The purpose of the study is to develop equipment and methods for establishing the basic diagnostic
parameters of sowing machines equipped with electronic control systems. The initial conditions for
ITEA-2021: 1st Workshop of the 10th International scientific and practical conference Information technologies in energy and agro-industrial
complex, October 6-8, 2021, Lviv, Ukraine
EMAIL: 19oleg85@ukr.net (O. Sukach); shevtyk@meta.ua (V. Shevchuk); yuriygabriel@gmail.com (Y. Gabriel)
ORCID: 0000-0003-0867-335X (O. Sukach); 0000-0002-8260-2165 (V. Shevchuk); 0000-0001-9378-8764 (Y. Gabriel)
© 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
67
creating such equipment are compactness and convenience of the main electronic elements, low metal
and material consumption, and its use would not require significant time and resources, the use of
additional equipment and machinery (tractor for aggregation, etc.) [6].
2.1. Materials and methods
Kompas-3D V14 program was used for design and visualization of the designed equipment. Non-
standard elements are made by means of 3D printing. To do this, the models were pre-processed using
a slicer Cura Ultimaker v.3.4.1 and the processing resulted in a g-code for the 3D printer Printo H3.
The power supply circuits of electrical and electronic systems were checked with a digital automatic
multimeter UNI-T UT61D, and the diagnostics of the sensors were performed using a portable PC and
a digital oscilloscope Hantek 1008B.
2.1.1. Results of the researches and discussion
HORSCH sowing complexes of the Pronto DC series are high-performance machines with large
dimensions and weight (Figure 1), the working width of sowing of complexes of this series varies within
3… 12 m, and the number of openers can reach 60 [1]. To ensure uniformity and a given seeding rate
under conditions of high speed units in modern sowing technology widely used electronic control
systems. The use of electronic systems allows you to automatically control the quality of sowing, to
adapt the work of the seeder to changes in movement parameters, or to signal to the operator about
certain faults or non-compliance with agronomic requirements [7, 8].
Figure 1: HORSCH sowing complex of the Pronto DC series:
1 - draw-bar; 2 - footboard; 3 - air blower; 4 - two-section bunker; 5 - seed distributor; 6 - lighting
system; 7 - track marker; 8 - sowing openers TurboDisc; 9 - tire compactors; 10 - two-row disk system;
11 - primary soil compactors
Debugging the correct operation of the seeder is to prepare its mechanical part, hydraulic and
pneumatic systems, electronic control system and a large number of software settings. It is more
expedient to study the program menu, set the set seeding rate, calibrate sensors and actuators with the
use of training equipment that fully reproduces the work of the electronic control system. For this
purpose, a training stand (Figure 2) was designed and manufactured to study the structure, configuration
and diagnostics of the electronic control system of the sowing machine [9].
The training stand was developed in the university laboratory, it is equipped with an electronic
control system of the drill, which is used on sowing machines of the manufacturer. As sowing machines
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are dimensional and metal-intensive, it is more convenient to study the parameters of the electronic
system on the developed training equipment.
The power supply of the electric and electronic seeder system comes from the mains of the tractor
with a voltage of 12, and the data is exchanged using the ISOBUS protocol using only one cable with
a nine-pin connector [1].
Figure 2: Training stand based on electric components of the seeder of the Pronto DC series (HORSCH):
1 - mounting frame; 2 - power supply (0… 24 V); 3 - ISOBUS mounting kit with extended cable;
4 - computer E-Manager Midi 3.0; 5 - terminal compatible with ISOBUS; 6 - seeding control module;
7- DrillManager ISOBUS mounting kit with extended cable; 8 - air blower; 9 - speed radar; 10 - the
electric drive of the of the dispenser coil; 11 - dispenser body, 12 - seeding control system
E-Manager Midi 3.0 is fully controlled by all seeder systems, while data display and configuration
change is performed via a digital terminal 5 with a software interface. It receives information from the
sensors, processes it and transmits it to the tractor controller, which, if necessary, issues control
commands to the electric drives or hydraulic system of the tractor, while all key indicators are displayed
on the screen of the terminal (Figure 3) [1].
Figure 3: The terminal is compatible with ISOBUS 2015 (a); the first page of the program menu of the
terminal (b)
After turning on the terminal, the first page of the program menu is loaded. Placement and indication
on the display depends on possibilities of adjustments and additional equipment of the device. The
second page shows the settings of the electronic control system. The third page is mainly used to set
the seeding rate, adjust the sensitivity of the seed supply control system and to troubleshoot clogging
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or damage to the sensors. The context menu is presented in the form of the following information blocks
in accordance with the designation in Figure 3 b.
Seeder maintenance engineers very often troubleshoot the electronic components of the control
system. Most often, an elementary replacement of a particular element. However, there are often
situations when the serviceable element is replaced or the seeding machine receives incorrect data from
the system sensors. For a more thorough study of the effectiveness of the electronic control system of
the drill in difficult operating conditions, a system of additional load in electrical circuits and lines that
transmit information signals was proposed. This allows you to assess the quality of seed sowing on the
basis of potentially erroneous data of the control system (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Additional load system of the electronic seed drill control system
The drill works in difficult operating conditions at high humidity, presence of a large amount of
dust, pesticides, fertilizers. Severe operating conditions affect the electrical and electronic components
of the drills, which disrupts the integrity of electrical circuits, data buses, and reduces the quality of
contact in connectors. Therefore, it is very interesting to study the quality of the drill under these
conditions. To do this, it was proposed to mount additional resistors of different electrical resistance in
the power supply circuits of the drill sensors, which allows you to simulate poor contact in the
connections, the presence of moisture or corrosion in the connectors, line breaks. To do this, junction
boxes are installed in the power supply circuits, in which the wires are mounted through 4…20 kОhm
resistors. The value of resistance was changed by a switch. Special connectors have been installed on
each of the wires of the electronic system to connect a multimeter or oscilloscope.
Before sowing, adjust the seeding rate and calibration of the dispenser (Figure 5). Typically, this
operation is performed in triplicate to avoid error [10 - 13].
Figure 5: Fragment of setting the seeding rate and calibration of the dispenser
70
At the next stage of preparation, the air blower is calibrated, which involves software settings and
setting the coded number of pulses of the sensor relative to the actual speed of the blower fan.
After determining the contours of the row spacing, it is necessary to determine the number of
installed sensors that monitor the supply of seed. As a rule, they are determined automatically, and
changes are made only when the number of openers and sensors do not match, or when the sensor fails
(Figure 6).
a
b
Figure 6: Adjustment and calibration of seeding control sensors and filling the bunker: software
settings (a); optical seeding control sensors with diagnostic ports (b)
Digital multimeters can be used to determine the serviceability of power supply circuits, electrical
and electronic seeder systems, while oscilloscopes must be used for high-quality diagnostics of seeding
control sensors, radar speed sensors, fan speed sensors and metering devices. By the nature of the
waveform of the information signal, you can get reliable data on the serviceability and correct operation
of these sensors. Since the technological process of sowing is fully controlled by a complex electronic
control system, it is possible to identify the following types of faults [14, 15]:
damage to power circuits;
complete damage or malfunction of the sensor;
incorrect operation of the sensor (presence of pulses and transmission of incorrect signals);
inconsistency of software settings (conversion of physical pulses into program codes).
Many sowing machines use many sensors. Their number and serviceability is determined by the
computer in automatic mode and signals only its failure. However, their incorrect operation must be
checked by service engineers with the help of specialized equipment. Particular attention should be paid
to optical seeding sensors on precision seed drills. In practice, it is very common to replace serviceable
sensors in the event that the power and data cables are not working properly. Under such conditions,
the increasing electrical resistance in the electronic circuit also decreases the amplitude and distortion
of the information signal. As a result, the system does not identify the sensor and falsely signals its
malfunction.
To determine the serviceability of the main electrical and electronic systems of the seeder,
oscillograms were taken from the seeding control sensors, the radar speed sensor and the fan speed
sensor. Since the bunker filling sensors are similar to the fan speed sensor, the signal from these sensors
was examined by a similar method using two channels of a digital oscilloscope.
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Seed control sensors are equipped with 4-pin connectors and are connected in parallel to the network.
It can be assumed that these sensors use a digital data signal. After measuring, we investigated that the
1st and 4th contacts of the connector are used to power the sensor (12 V). Contact 2 generates the signal
shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: The shape of the information signal at terminal 2 of the connector of the optical seeding
control sensors
The shape of the oscillogram of the information signal (Figure 6) did not change depending on
whether or not the seed flies through any of the sensors.
Measuring the oscillogram (Figure 8) on the 3rd contact of the connector under different operating
conditions: no seed flow (Figure 8 a), the seed comes only through the first sensor (Figure 8 b), the seed
comes through two sensors simultaneously (Figure 8 c), the following waveforms are obtained.
a b
c
Figure 8: The form of the information signal on the contact 3 of the optical sensors connector of
sowing control under the conditions: the seed enters through two sensors (a); the seed enters through
the first sensor (b); the seed comes through the second sensor (c)
Analyzing the obtained waveforms, we can assume that the sensors use the UART data protocol. In
this case, the contact 2 of the sowing control sensor connector is the receiver (RX), and the contact 3 is
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the transmitter (TX) of the digital signal [14, 15]. Using such a data transfer protocol allows you to
place a large number of sensors on one data line and you can detect from which sensor the information
signal is coming. Thanks to this implementation, it is possible to diagnose the efficiency of each
individual seeding sensor.
Figure 9 shows a fragment of the study of the radar speed sensor of the unit. The speed change was
performed using a motion simulator, its speed was changed by a PWM regulator with a power of
1.5…16 V. This allows us to obtain the characteristics of the pulses, and accordingly the radar, in the
whole range of changes in the speed of the sowing machine.
a b
c
Figure 9: Investigation of the radar speed sensor: test fragment (a); the form of the information signal
at a speed of 3 km/h (b); information signal form at a speed of 10 km/h (c)
As can be seen from the oscillograms (Figure 9 b), the signal has a rectangular shape, with a filling
factor of 50%. As the speed increases, the frequency of the signal increases, and it increases in direct
proportion. Thus, by measuring the signal frequency, the main control unit has the ability to obtain the
value of the current speed of the seeder. If in real conditions the speed of the seeder according to the
readings of the radar sensor does not coincide with the real one, then in the system it is possible to
correct the speed to the set conditions.
3. Conclusions
A training stand has been developed, which completely simulates the operation of the electronic
control system of the drill. It is expedient to use the training stand for training of experts on operation
of sowing machines, its use allows to model various malfunctions of electronic system, to investigate
more thoroughly possible ways of diagnostics and repair. The convenience of using training stands is
their compactness, ease of location of the main elements of the electronic control system, and its use
does not require a significant amount of time and resources, the use of additional equipment.
In the course of research the principles of work and technology of data transmission of the main
elements of the electronic control system of the drill are established. According to the nature and
patterns of change of oscillograms of information signals, the main diagnostic parameters of seed drill
sensors are set.
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The proposed method of diagnostics of the electronic control system is to determine the basic
parameters of the electronic components. To do this, with the help of an oscilloscope taken oscillograms
of the main sensors of the drill in different modes of operation. The reference values of the oscillograms
of the information signals of serviceable components can be compared with the parameters of the sensor
signals of each individual sowing section. This method makes it impossible to incorrectly replace a
working sensor, or receive incorrect signals from the sensors in case of damage to the sensor itself or
its power supply circuit or information wires.
During the testing of this method, its high efficiency was found when testing optical seeding sensors.
It is advisable to check the components of the electronic control system for precision seeders. This
allows you to ensure high quality sowing due to the correct operation of the sowing control system.
4. Acknowledgements
We thank the company Horsсh, Zolochiv TX, Taras Runtsiv and Serhiy Ivanishin in creating training
and laboratory equipment.
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