Re: Ahhh... I think you are finally seeing the light!!
Woodbeef - I think you're overestimating my intelligence, missing the overall big picture (as it pertains to my universe, anyway), or some combination of the two. I haven't seen the the light at all, at least not the light according to your gospel. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
In
my universe,
nothing is safe from tweaking - whether it
should be tweaked or not is completely irrelevant - and, in fact, many things exist only because you couldn't tweak them if they didn't. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
From a practical standpoint,
everything is
designed with compromises in mind. Then, when the
implementation people get involved, more compromises happen. Throughout the whole process,
bean counters poke their necessary noses into it, and more compromises happen. Throughout the whole process,
legal types poke their necessary noses into it, and more compromises happen. By the time it finally gets to the market, and I have a chance to buy it, it's been compromised to death, reduced to the lowest common denominator. Safety stuff has been added to the point people even dumber than I am can't possibly hurth themselves with it - compromising its usability. Features that could have been added for $5, but will cost me $50 to add, have been omitted because "not everybody would want it".
I am not "everybody". I am
me, with my own requirements, my own experience level, my own work situations, and my own standards of perceived perfection. The reasons for a piece of equipment having been compromised to death are as many and varied as the people who had a hand in ruining it (from my vantage point), but it doesn't matter
why it happened, you can only recognize that it did happen, then decide whether to live with it, or fix it. Now, I don't mean to imply that most manufacturers have a choice with a lot of the compromises they make, but others they do. Either way, I have to make a choice to live with their chosen compromises, correct/modify/enhance the equipment so it suits my needs and wants, or change my needs and wants to suit the equipment. I'm not happy with the first choice, and refuse to take the last one, so I'm left with the second one. I accept full consequences for my actions - if I break something because I tweaked it, I don't return it for warranty work. But what's the point of having a piece of equipment that doesn't perform to its full potential or, more importantly, do the job you need it to? I agree there's a lot to be said for buying the piece equipment designed to do the job you need done in the first place, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept involved here - to tweak or not tweak - merely the degree to which it's required.
Performance considerations aside, in my universe, there's something to be said for the uniqueness of the individual. I have learned, for example, that most people like coffee at about 1/3 the strength I like it. I don't criticize the convenience store folks who make it (even if I do privately think that most people think they like it weak because it's cheaper to make it weak so they've never tasted it the way it should be made - consider the success of Starbucks) - I just don't buy it. I roast and brew my own instead. Tractors, and just about everything else, are made the same way - what are the minimum requirements to satisfy 51% of the market?
Another example, this time specific to tractors: You'll recall another poster asked a question about a hydraulic pump that would put out one flow rate at maximum pressure and a higher flow rate at lower pressure, depending on the circumstances. I've been researching that issue for several months now, and here's what I've found out: It's easily done, and even has a name - it's called a hp-limited pump. Almost always piston pumps, they're set for a maximum input hp, and they use up to that amount, and not a bit more, to produce the maximum flow they can generate at the pressure currently required. You can easily vary the maximum pressure generated, as well as the maximum flow generated, within the design limitations of the pump, of course. They're almost 10% more efficient than the gear pumps commonly used. What's the catch? Cost. Instead of the $800 or so for a pump in the class the EarthForce EF-5 uses (what I could get it for, anyway), these pumps cost $2000. Assuming the factory pays the same thing for the pumps that I do (I don't mind giving them a huge break here), it would cost them $1200 more to provide a hugely more workable implement pump system. But it costs
me $2500 to do it, because I paid $500 or so for the pump I get to throw away, plus I have to pay for the new one. So why not offer things like this as an option? EarthForce offers more options than anybody else I've seen, so I can't complain about them in comparison to other companies but, as you can see, it could be better. Again, all this is just to illustrate that, in my universe, tweaking will always be a fact of life.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one other thing: I happen to
like tweaking. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
MarkC
