We use an early 1960s Fordson Dexta tractor to run the irrigation pump. During a day when we are irrigating, the tractor can often be left running for extended periods of time between checks. If something were to go wrong such as a loss of oil or the engine overheating, then the system should be shut down as quickly as possible to minimise damage. I have designed and built an engine watchdog for this tractor that monitors various engine parameters and shuts it down if something is wrong. I snuck this project in as part of FIT3146 (Makerlab) in semester 2 2023.

Demonstration video

Please excuse the slightly questionable audio.

Video on designing and making the unit

Code and design files

TractorWatchdog (Git repository)

Engine watchdog for a Fordson Dexta tractor. Should work with other tractors as well.

Documentation

Doxygen documentation is available here.