Modern tractors, with their vast array of diagnostic sensors and electronics, are hugely complex and incredibly expensive to maintain, or so is the common belief.
However, that view is quite erroneous according to machinery lecturers Vincent McSweeney and Fionn Foley of Munster Technological University (MTU), Tralee Co. Kerry.
Additional skillset
At a recent open day the School of Science, Engineering, Technolgy, Maths, was showing both the teaching facilities and the equipment used in explaining the intricacies of modern machinery to students.
As a rule, in years gone by, these would mainly be various old engines and gearboxes which have been stripped down and reassembled by hundreds of students as they passed through their course.
And while this is still true of Tralee, it has added a further teaching aid in the form of a modest assembly of electronic components which lays bare the essentials of engine diagnostics.
