Archive for May, 2010
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Open Source Laser Cutter
The following is a project from another group, but it is close to our goals. Chip in if you want to see this happen – a 100W open source, laser cutter for under $5k. If successful, this project will be a direct contribution to RepLab and the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). We will …
2 Comments » - Posted in Crowdsource Funding,Open Source Laser Cutter,RepLab by Marcin
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Will’s One Month Report
So I’ve been here at Factor e Farm for 1 month. I am living and breathing the Open Source Ecology lifestyle and working on different projects. When I arrived at the start of May I had a little Q&A session with Marcin to talk about ideas, visions and how I was going to help …
2 Comments » - Posted in Dedicated Project Visits,Project Reports by Marcin
Saturday, May 22nd, 2010
LifeTrac II Design
These last few days we have been wotking on the second open source tractor protytype – LifeTrac II – on Blender. Here is the progress so far.
The concept involves:
front end loader and a back-end loader – doubles attachment flexibility
4 wheel drive with direct coupling of hydraulic motors to the wheel shafts
modular Power Cube …
5 Comments » - Posted in LifeTrac,LifeTrac II by William
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Induction Furnace Controller
Darren Vandervort, founder of the Open Capitalist open source product development platform, has joined us on the Open Source Induction Furnace (OSIF) project. We are using Open+Pario for project development. He volunteered to become project leader for the induction furnace controller subproject – where the controller is one of the components of a modular, …
5 Comments » - Posted in Induction Furnace by Marcin
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Pickled Deer
About a week ago we had the fortune of being given a lot of dear meat by our neighbour. As it happens we did not have enough fridge or freezer space to freeze the meat so we decided to adopt a different approach. We got out some canning jars, cleaned them out and then …
1 Comment » - Posted in Diet,Local Food Systems by William
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Pressing Rate Maxed Out at 16 Bricks Per Minute
Speed trials on our automatic, open source CEB press, The Liberator, are complete. We achieved a maximum brick pressing rate of 16 bricks per minute, or less than 3 seconds per brick. We have run sufficient tests and worked out the bugs in the control scheme, and the results are as optimistic as predicted. …
8 Comments » - Posted in CEB Press Automation,Compressed Earth Block Press by Marcin
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
LifeTrac II – Frame
We are working on the second prototype of the open source tractor, as discussed in the last post. We have come up with a sketch for the new LifeTrac II frame, which was drawn in Blender. The disks mark the location of the wheels, and the middle verticals will serve as the attachment for …
14 Comments » - Posted in Global Village Construction Set,LifeTrac,LifeTrac II by William
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
LifeTrac II Concept
Marcin takes us into Factor-e-Farm One-Room-Schoolhouse again and this time to explain the concept behind designing and then building the open-source-tractor, LifeTrac II. This 5 minute video lays down the foundation from where we will begin.
Coming next on the “LifeTrac II” project we will have some basic frame designs drawn up in Blender open …
2 Comments » - Posted in Factor e Farm One Room Schoolhouse,LifeTrac,LifeTrac II by William
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
Open Source Chicken Incubator Continued – Hexahatch v2.0
Marcin takes us into the OSE One Room Schoolhouse and this time explains how to build a chicken incubator in which 107 eggs can be placed. This is evolution of our previous work from last year, where we go from a forced-air to a still-air, automatic egg-turning incubator. This 8 minute video shows how …
5 Comments » - Posted in Factor e Farm One Room Schoolhouse,Open Source Chicken Incubator by William
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
William Arrives from the UK
I finally arrived at Factor e Farm for my dedicated project visit. Meet me – and find out why I came here and what I will do in the next 3 months.
As an initial overview for me, and for the rest of the audience – Marcin takes us into the Factor e Farm …
