importance of position control

[dodge man]

Scotty you described how my BX works correctly. You can stop the implement any place you want and it will hold. I've sat on a tractor and run it a little bit with position control and I would describe it as having notches where you can put the implement at preset heights.

 

[TMGT]

Scotty you described how my BX works correctly. You can stop the implement any place you want and it will hold. I've sat on a tractor and run it a little bit with position control and I would describe it as having notches where you can put the implement at preset heights.

The important difference is that the position control actually has active feedback from the lift arms to the valve that will maintain its height from bleed down and will be able to consistently return to that height based on lever position. Very handy for the brush hog if you have to lift often, or do a lot of box blade work.

I can get around not having it on my B by using check chains but they aren't nearly as convenient.

 

[LD48750]

How can a 3-point even be used without position control. In my case - be rather difficult to connect up any of my 3-point implements - they weigh from 730# to 1050#.

Now draft control - totally different operation. I've used it with my moldboard plow. I guess it works OK - until the plow encountered a large rock - trips and I have to reset and start all over again.

All my land engagement 3-point implements do a good job without draft control. I can see its use if I were plowing large, rock free fields with a multi-bottom mold board plow.

My operators manual has a very precise/adequate description of both position control and draft control.

JMHO - but some are confusing position control and draft control. I would almost guarantee - if your tractor has a 3-point system - you have, at least, position control. You may/may not have draft control. Think about it - - if you have a 3-point system - how do you raise/lower any attached implement. That lever you just grabbed to raise/lower the implement is your position control.

Why do we continue to disagree when its as simple as reading the appropriate section of your Op manual.

Hop on a Ford 2N or 9N and tell me again about position control.

 

[bcp]

The BX height lever is spring loaded to center. You raise or lower the implement to desired height, let go, and the implement stays there, subject to drifting down. The lever cannot be placed for a certain height, or returned to a certain height by any method other than looking back to see where it is.

It controls the position (initially only) but is not "position control."

Bruce

 

[JWR]

That is my point. If they didn't have position control, you would have only full up or full down. I don't think that there is any tractor made with a 3 PH that doesn't have some form of position control. Now most small tractors likely wont have draft control unless it comes as an option. Draft control wont function without some pretty good traction and I doubt that a SCUT would have enough traction to engage the draft control function effectively. Be it 1/4" inching as per Kubota or whatever, it has position control if you can lower the implement to a position somewhere between full up and full down. The tractor may just have a simple set screw to tighten up at the prescribed point that you can return the lever to that position after raising the implement. Basically if you only have one control lever, you have position control. If you have two then you have position and draft control.

Well said. I agree. Where confusion enters is that in recent years Kubota (others?) have made small tractors with "bump it up or bump it down" controls (quarter inching as you described it) for vertical position of the 3pt . In those systems apparently the lever returns to some rest position and your control via bumping the lever up for incremental raising or down for incremental lowering. This and other inventions of recent years have muddied the simple waters of Position Control and Draft control. The terminology gets contorted when there are more features than what the old "Ferguson System" provided and got copied by virtually every tractor manufacturer for decades.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Well said. I agree. Where confusion enters is that in recent years Kubota (others?) have made small tractors with "bump it up or bump it down" controls (quarter inching as you described it) for vertical position of the 3pt . In those systems apparently the lever returns to some rest position and your control via bumping the lever up for incremental raising or down for incremental lowering. This and other inventions of recent years have muddied the simple waters of Position Control and Draft control. The terminology gets contorted when there are more features than what the old "Ferguson System" provided and got copied by virtually every tractor manufacturer for decades.

Ahhh, I see now.

I can see how the "bump up or bump down" or "quarter inching" could be useful, but only if I had a regular control lever as well.

 

[rScotty]

Trying to understand this.

Sounds like rScotty was referring to "position control" as simply the ability to adjust the position of the 3PH up-or-down-or-somewhere-inbetween using the lever.

Sounds like there is also a more advanced "position control" that does some kind of automatic adjustments (without operator input?) to maintain the implement at a constant height above the ground? If so, I wish I had that feature. Sure would help with box-blading!

Yes, I think you are right, GwWaT. That's the exasperating thing about language -- it has this way of evolving and changing.

I was using the term "position control" in the traditional sense as it has been used since it was first featured on 3 point hitches - I believe that was back in the 1940s or 50s. That type of position control had a single lever, and depending on where you started and then where you moved the lever...., remember, the implement moves up hydraulically, but down by gravity - the implement then was either moved hydraulically up to that new position or by gravity down to that new position. Before that vintage position control innovation and the Ferguson 3 pt hitch , the even older types of implement lifts on early tractors were often totally mechanical and all too often were either all up or all down.

At the end of each row you have to raise the implement to go back the other way, and the position resulting after the implement was raised and lowered by the position control level itself was not very accurately repeatable via the lever. It was mostly up to the operator to be repeatable. At various times on various models one would find numbers on the sector holding the lever that were some help. And some models even had little thumb screw stops to help find the same lever position - but neither method was all that accurate and the final decision was left to the operator. Which - with fields tending to be uneven - was probably just as it should be.

It is sounding to me now like there has been an advancement? in position control so that it automatically returns to the same level. And it ialso sounds like some advertising department that doesn't speak the "American Rural Agricultural Dialect" has decided to rename things to their own way of thinking. That's confusing, but we'll get over it.
As to the new "advanced" position control (if true) that could be an advantage or not depending on how flat and level the ground surface is. Certainly not a necessity. The vintage position control used in the vintage fashion for the last half century is quite adaptable. And therein may be the answer to the original poster's question. There's been a lot of work done with that old system largely because it is so simple & operator adaptable. ...

It's an interesting discussion; hope it keeps going..
rScotty

 

[SDT]

Position control means there is feedback to the 3pt control as to position, it allows one to repeatedly drop the implement to a predetermined point, also allows it to compensate for leakage. It's very handy if you are doing things like spreading and can constantly drop the box blade to say, 3in above grade for example.

My tractor has a 1/4inching valve, basically it's has a detent that allows approx a 1/4in of movement, other then that it operates similar to a single acting valve where it holds one you center the valve.

I wouldn't buy another tractor without it.

Bingo, TMG.

Position control is closed loop and, therefore self correcting.

A quarter inching valve, as is very common on SCUTs, is open loop (no feedback). Correspondingly, the operator must continue to "bump" or push the handle until the lift arms are in the desired position.

SDT

 

[IchabodCrayne]

And to Dodge Man and IchabodCrayne - I'm curious and it sounds like several other old timers are too. Does what I've described match what your BX does?

Hydraulic up, gravity down. Yup..
The lever is self centering from up or down pos.
If I raise or lower and let go the 3ph stays where it is unless it's forced up but I'm not sure if it stays up or falls back down after. To follow ground contour I have to hold lever in down pos while working.
I have no way to return to any specific height but when I have it set I can bump it up or down (1/4" per bump?)

 

[TMGT]

Bingo, TMG.

Position control is closed loop and, therefore self correcting.

A quarter inching valve, as is very common on SCUTs, is open loop (no feedback). Correspondingly, the operator must continue to "bump" or push the handle until the lift arms are in the desired position.

SDT

That is the one thing I missed on my old B7200 that I had for a short period of time, it had position control, also had to repair/adjust it so have been pretty intimate with the system.

There have been a lot of tractors over the years that have non- position controlled 3pt and a lot that do so I'm not sure where all this confusion sets in.

Maybe it's like the people that misuse terms and it gets ingrained in them. My biggest pet peeve is the people that call a 3 point hitch a PTO.