Soil Pulverizer

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Fri 5 Nov 2010

Construction Time

Posted by Marcin

We have finally started construction after spending most of the year developing equipment. We finished the CEB press on Tuesday. The open source Tractor, CEB press, Power Cube, and Soil Pulverizer are now in action. The main obstacle of soil handling has been declared solved.

CEB Construction Time from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

We began building the columns for the modular construction system as described in a previous post.

We have until November 14 before we cut off our building experiments due to weather. We have an open invitation to anyone who wants to help. We will be out there until Nov. 14. By then, we aim to complete 2-4 modular sections, 16×16 feet each. We have the concrete pads already prepared. Whatever we don’t finish we will take up in spring starting April 1, 2011 – towards a complete workshop as in the former post.

We still need materials for the remailing 3 truss sections and 4 roof sections. We reported that the trusses total $250 per section ($750 total). Sheet metal roofing is $300 per section, for about 400 square feet including 3 foot overhangs ($1200 total). This covers over 1000 square feet of floor space, and the entire workshop will be three times this size – to allow comfortable production of 4 CEB presses or tractors at one time. The workshop is intended to help fund the revolution, under the assumption that we get our ducks in a row with marketing.

The interesting part is that we aim to demonstrate that it takes only 3 full days per 16×16 foot section with only 2 people working, including roof and columns, but no infill walls. We aim to get to this point as a result of the next 9 days of practice. We’re shaking down all the parts of the method, and so far the soil pulverizing workflow is solved. Our optimization includes installing the automatic controls for the CEB press by Sunday. Chip in:

Categories: CEB Modular Construction Units, Compressed Earth Block Press, Construction, LifeTrac II, Power Cube II, Soil Pulverizer II, The Liberator

[22] Comments

Sat 9 Oct 2010

Open Source Soil Pulverizer – Prototype II

Posted by Marcin

We have finished the second prototype of the open source soil pulverizer – an important labor-saving device for soil-handling in CEB construction. It is useful because it combines digging-pulverizing-loading the CEB press in one device. See the fabrication and the first test run:

Open Source Soil Pulverizer Prototype II from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

It should also be noted that the pulverizer action above is powered by a single, 18 horsepower Power Cube I. This is not bad at all for a lawnmower engine. Also, compare the present results with Prototype I to see the simplifications. For one, we have eliminated the hydraulic cylinder of Prototype I for opening the mouth. We replaced this cylinder with a simple, passive chain – which does the task automatically as the loader bucket is tilted down.

The Prototype II dxf design file, including swept motion analysis, is available for download.

It is encouraging to see a device that is now much closer to Full Product Release. Overall, the Pulverizer II is much more stiff and stable. The rotor rests on height adjustors, which also allow the rotor to jump over bumps since the down pressure is caused only by the weight of the rotor assembly. Moreover, the increased torque on the shortened tines prevented stalling of the rotor in hard, dry soil. This is so far quite pleasing – especially since we are using only 18 hp of power. The next step is adding the second Power Cube – the Power Cube Prototype II that we just finished. We’ll report on this topic next.

We are introducing here the prototype of the OSE Label - a product label for post-scarcity economics – pursuant to OSE Specifications and the OSE License for Post-Scarcity Economics. Here is the descriptive label for the Soil Pulverizer:

Note the low, dedicated parts cost of $200 for the Soil Pulverizer – made possible by utilizing a product ecology of other components that are already part of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) infrastructure. This is a further demonstration of how the GVCS is a set of Lego blocks for creating real infrastructures. If we consider the cost of the hydraulic motor and bucket, the total price for the Soil Pulverizer would be about $800 for materials.

If you are up for some more video, here is William’s footage of the Pulverizer test run with the real sounds:

As such, we’re getting closer to effective CEB construction with improved equipment which is leagues beyond our initial CEB building adventures.

Categories: OSE Label, OSE License for Post-Scarcity Economics, Post-scarcity, Soil Pulverizer

[18] Comments

Mon 7 Sep 2009

Soil Pulverizer Annihilates Soil Handling Limits

Posted by Marcin

We are glad to report that the LifeTrac-mounted, open source soil pulverizer has annihilated soil-handling limits from our compressed earth brick (CEB) pressing ability. Initial testing achieved 5 ton per hour soil throughput, while The Liberator CEB press requires about 2 tons of soil per hour.

We have shown the pulverizer rotor development in a previous post. See the build and testing of the machine after the addition of the bucket and lift cylinder:

Soil Pulverizer Prototype 1 Complete from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

The tractor-mounted pulverizer is used to dig soil and load it directly into the CEB machine. Other CEB pressing industry standards may involve a tractor loader, stationary soil pulverizer, conveyor, and then the CEB machine. See this example from Powell and Sons. We’re replacing the stationary soil pulverizer and conveyor with LifeTrac. This simplifies the equipment costs significantly – and our initial tests show that our strategy works well.

Stationary soil pulverizers comparable in throughput to ours cost over $20k. Ours cost $200 in materials – which is not bad in terms of 100-fold price reduction. The trick to this feat is modular design. We are using components that are already part of our LifeTrac infrastructure. (more…)

Categories: Accomplishments, Compressed Earth Block Press, Global Village Construction Set, Infrastructure, Soil Pulverizer

[14] Comments