Not much makes the rounds in a farm neighbourhood faster than an equipment fire.
Those fires – most often involving combines and balers – are common and costly as equipment costs rise.
Why it matters: There’s more interest in managing risk of fire in expensive equipment, including from insurance companies.
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A startup company based in Canada and the United States plans to let farmers know when parts of heating or failing long before they become a fire hazard.
Chariot Command provides heat-measuring cameras that can be moved to places on equipment and on the farm where there’s interest in measuring heat.
On combines that can include the engine and chopper bearings.
“We have a sensor system, which is a thermal and regular camera, so we use that information with our software to help determine what’s going on and provide an alert to you, the operator,” says Andrew Leaman, co-founder and CEO of Chariot Command.
Farmers can target certain areas of the machine for extra observation, says Leaman.
He was at the Ottawa Valley Farm Show from March 11 to 13.
Leaman says that they’re still a startup company and want to keep learning from farmer knowledge, including other areas where the cameras could be useful.
That means that farmers could move the cameras off the combines after harvest season and use them on grain bins or other equipment where heat is an issues and could be measured.
