Assembly and Evaluation of an Instrumentation System of a Cassava Planter
Accuracy in measuring parameters is key in research and development of farm machinery. It is required in order to provide reliable data for farm machinery industries to mass produce efficient machines for agricultural production. Accurate measurement of draught is important for determining power requirement of a cassava planter and selecting appropriate tractor as well as choosing the forward speed to operate the planter. It is also necessary to know the number of stakes cassava planter plants per time. Therefore, an instrumentation system was assembled for simultaneous measurement of draught and the number of stakes planted per time. The system consists of a 5-ton load cell, a load cell amplifier, opto-coupler module, micro-controller, LCD display, SD-card shield and the connection cable. The system was installed between the tractor and the cassava planter with the aid of a bracket which serves as a linkage between the planter and the draw-bar of the tractor. An experiment was carried out on a tilled (flat) sandy clay loam soil to determine the effect of tractor forward speed on draught and number of stakes planted per time. In the experiment, five forward speeds of 1.5, 1.8, 2.1, 2.3 and 2.6 km/h were used at soil depth of 100 mm. The results showed an exponential relationship between forward speed and draught in which draught ranging between 24.91 and 744.44 N increased with an increase in forward speed. Planting rate varying between 30 and 42 stakes per minute were recorded at forward speed ranging between 1.5 and 2.6 km/h. Conclusively, the instrumentation system was tested and found suitable for the measurement and recording tasks it was developed for with good correlation between forward speed and draught as well as the number of stakes planted per time.