The winner of Farmers Weekly‘s Inventions Competition is now producing and selling quick-release mounting kits for in-cab control and precision farming display units.

Norfolk farmer Jonny Leech devised the two-part brackets so he could quickly remove the touchscreens in his New Holland tractors following a spate of thefts.

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“It’s such a hassle when you plan a day’s work, go to the tractor and find the screen has gone,” he says.

…and pulling the spring-loaded pin makes it easy to remove © Jonny Leech

“We had three thefts in 18 months and lost three screens in one go the night before we were due to start drilling, which made me determined to find an easy-to-use solution to the problem.”

Simple design

One half of the ScreenSaver bracket is attached to the original mounting arm, the other half to the back of the display; the two slot together and the ethernet power and data cable is connected at the same time.

To separate them, operators support the display terminal, pull a spring-loaded pin and lift it away.

A commercial version for Case IH AFS Pro and New Holland Intelliview displays has been completed and will be on sale later this year; but a version for John Deere Gen4 and new Gen5 screens is already available, priced £105, from sole distributor Ben Burgess.

Carl Pitelen, Burgess Group precision agriculture and innovations manager, asked for a John Deere version having seen the concept that won the Intermediate category of this year’s Farmers Weekly inventions contest.

“The ScreenSaver mount makes it really easy for operators to remove the display from their cab for safe-keeping and to put it back in place again,” he said.

“We’re planning to fit it as standard on all new tractors we supply because it avoids the cost, disruption and trouble caused when screens are stolen.”