Factor E Farm Blog

We are now officially using Open+Pario as our project management and design repository for Open Source Ecology. The most active project at present is the CEB press, and we are beginning project management of the Open Source Induction Furnace. Anybody can view any of the projects – including design files, technical discussions, etc. The content is entirely transparent and open to the greater community.

If you want to get involved in any of the projects,  you can  sign up  as a Project Member by registering and joining  a given project. (more…)

We are now officially using Open+Pario as our project management and design repository for Open Source Ecology. The most active project at present is the CEB press, and we are beginning project management of the Open Source Induction Furnace. Anybody can view any of the projects - including design files, technical discussions, etc. The ...

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Hats off to our collaborators from Poland for open-sourcing a manual, dual-block CEB press. It is in the pre-alpha v0.1 release stage.

Open Source MANUAL CEB PRESS beta I from Cohabitat Platform on Vimeo.

You can download the existing CAD files here. The files are in Polish, so they still need to be translated for the broader audience.

Meet your developers from the Co-Habitat Platform: Pawel Sroczynski and Remik Karbowiak. These guys are pretty good. They also developed a model open source, prefab, straw-bale house design, and they will be buildng it this year at a budget of $7k. I always thought that straw bale is too exotic in practice because of the huge labor requirements, but these guys are showing otherwise with OpenSTRAW:

Here is the building sequence. Click on the following images to enlarge:

Both the manual CEB press and the straw bale work are a major contribution to open source economic development – and to humanity. See their website for more information.  Congratulations to the Co-Habitat team. We’d like to add the manual CEB press to the Factor e Farm product line as soon as the machine is tested in the field, and we may end up building some straw bale here after all.

Hats off to our collaborators from Poland for open-sourcing a manual, dual-block CEB press. It is in the pre-alpha v0.1 release stage. Open Source MANUAL CEB PRESS beta I from Cohabitat Platform on Vimeo. You can download the existing CAD files here. The files are in Polish, so they still need to be translated for the ...

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Thanks to Jonas, Bojana, Rikard, Karl, Henrik, Mathias Friman, and all the others behind the scenes – who all combined for a pretty fiery Free Society Conference for 2009. You can see the Live website for the conference here, and the program here. Between the two sites, you will find the uploaded presentations (such as ours), and the videos of all the presentations should be getting posted soon.

Group photo of presenters and organizers (source)

The difference in this presentation compared to our previous work at Oekonux or Linz Counterculture Fair was that half of it was dedicated to discussion of the social contract for a post-scarcity community. This contract is up for complete review and and improvement – so please read it and rip it up here. The essential question in our case is how to attract dedicated developers who want to invest deeply into making post-scarcity living a reality.

It is not possible to mention all that went on but the highlights. On my talk – people had many questions afterwards for at least 45 minutes, so the concepts of building post-scarcity communities with existing technology are well-received. We already have a couple more True Fans signed up from the conference. Combined with new interest from the Product Release, we have 6 new True Fans since Nov. 1, and an overall total of 50.

We sparked great discussion on the open source fab lab, in that hackerspaces worldwide are well-positioned to collaborate on at least some of the pieces necessary. The concept of Industry 2.0 is really taking off – ie., the combination of fabrication literacy, global design efforts shared by computer, and local production via open source fab labs. (more…)

Thanks to Jonas, Bojana, Rikard, Karl, Henrik, Mathias Friman, and all the others behind the scenes - who all combined for a pretty fiery Free Society Conference for 2009. You can see the Live website for the conference here, and the program here. Between the two sites, you will find the uploaded presentations (such ...

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Sweden is not exactly sunny at this time of the year, but the Nordic people are lovely.

So far, it’s been a mind-blowing experience at the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS 2009). One cannot explain it in writing – not even by watching the videos – because it is the atmosphere of freedom and high level work around it that makes this conference so interesting. The place is exploding with pure passion on the topic, and its flavor seems less academic than the Oekonux Conference.

Here is the talk that we’re presenting today on the work of Factor e Farm. I look forward to cracking the limits of consciousness with it – even though there’s nothing original in it. It is integration of learnings, and an attempt to put them together to a viable pattern for society.

I’ll report more on the findings from the conference later.

Sweden is not exactly sunny at this time of the year, but the Nordic people are lovely. So far, it's been a mind-blowing experience at the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS 2009). One cannot explain it in writing - not even by watching the videos - because it is the atmosphere of freedom ...

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So here it is. November 1, 2009 is the day of Product Release.

Factor e Farm announces its first Product Release in the form of The Liberator high-performance, open source, Compressed Eearth Block (CEB) Press – Beta Version 1.0.

Let’s go back a little in history. In the end of December, 2007 – we pressed the first brick – with The Liberator Prototype I. We got the first prototype into full operation by year-end 2008 – and pressed over 5000 bricks to build the workshop addition. In 2009, we were busy completing the CEB Prototype II and supporting equipment like the pulverizer-loader. Add the soil shaker in the last post, and we’ve got product.

You can have a working copy for $3,500 – if you are a True Fan. If you are not, the price is $5,500. See the product specifications.

This is our Thank You to the True Fans – who supported this work in development over this year. For others, this is motivation for subscribing to the 1000 True Fans – 1000 Global Villages campaign – for discounts on future products after the CEB press. Let’s just say – it will be a good return on investment.

At 9 bricks per minute demonstrated production rate using LifeTrac as a power source, this is about 3 times better than we predicted almost 2 years ago. The True Fans price is factor 10 reduction in price for comparable performance. We have a serious piece of equipment on our hands. We are now taking orders.

Who will be the first buyer? (more…)

So here it is. November 1, 2009 is the day of Product Release. Factor e Farm announces its first Product Release in the form of The Liberator high-performance, open source, Compressed Eearth Block (CEB) Press - Beta Version 1.0. Let's go back a little in history. In the end of December, 2007 - we ...

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As of 10/24/09, I am no longer on site at FeF. I would like to thank:

• Marcin for giving me the opportunity to excel
• Inga for her support
• The Review Team: Vinay, Ralf, Lucas, and Jeb
• The audience out there listening

Ok, onto the goods. This is the list of things I was supposed to complete. It turned out that most of these were unrealistic to complete in a month and others fell into the category of “learning while doing” which also falls outside of the scope of this project.

1. Align the Prototype I table in the x, y, and z directions to 1/16″ accuracy.
2. Demonstrate level of accuracy of x, y, and z motion over the full range of motion of Prototype I by performing and documenting a series of tests from g-code files.
3. Publish at least some key test files to test replicability by Research Director.
4. Characterize Prototype I with regards to accuracy and precision at varying speeds and configurations.
5. Attach torch head to Prototype I.
6. Demonstrate that slightly over sized 1/2″ holes can be torched out on 1 inch centers in a 12″ piece of 2″x2″x1/4″ square tubing.
7. Demonstrate that 4 such pieces laid out on the far corners of the table can be torched out successfully to within 1/16″ accuracy.
8. Demonstrate the same as the last point with 1″, 16 gauge square tubing, but using 3/8″, slightly oversized holes.
9. Compose and publish g-code and procedure for torching out the gantry of Prototype II which incorporates improvements made in Prototype I.
10. Develop a business proposal that takes into account work from the last month for the purpose of bringing the project to product release.
11. Document work as specified in “Documentation”.

What was accomplished was …

Plus lots of documentation, and … sparks!

Here is the final photo that recaps the whole project.

The Goggles, the Goggles!

Plus a Video! Wow!

Plasma Cutter in Action from Lawrence Kincheloe on Vimeo.

And, because I promised three articles about the nature of open source hardware and business models… it kind of became one… so without further ado, “The Goods”:

Musings Upon the Nature of Open Source Hardware as a Business
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As of 10/24/09, I am no longer on site at FeF. I would like to thank: Marcin for giving me the opportunity to excel Inga for her support The Review Team: Vinay, Ralf, Lucas, and Jeb The audience out there listening Ok, onto the goods. This is the list of things I was supposed to complete. It turned ...

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We are starting biweekly OSE Global Conference Calls – beginning Wednesday, October, 14, at 11:00 AM GMT-6 (Central USA time zone). Why? Because we are nearing critical decision forks in this open source project. Read on.

These are exciting times as we near product release for the high-performance, open source, Compressed Earch Brick (CEB) press. Just as a heads up, we’re getting interviewed by Time Magazine next Tuesday, and we have a 2 hour interview with the Venus Project next Monday night, which has quite a global following in the form of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Along the lines of Product Release – we will be releasing CEB Press Beta Version 1.0 – with as much development as we can accomplish by November 1, 2009. (more…)

We are starting biweekly OSE Global Conference Calls - beginning Wednesday, October, 14, at 11:00 AM GMT-6 (Central USA time zone). Why? Because we are nearing critical decision forks in this open source project. Read on. These are exciting times as we near product release for the high-performance, open source, Compressed Earch Brick (CEB) press. ...

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We just got a copy of this TV interview that we did back on the OSE tour in Austria. Michaela from Earthship Austria organized this particular event. The interview took place at a local TV station in Bad Kleinkirchheim – a well known ski resort town in Austria. Both Inga and Michaela agree that this is a good, brief introduction (12 minutes) to the work of OSE – and in particular the Global Village Construction Set. We recommend it as a good entry level discussion for those less familiar with open source development – but it also touches on the deeper issues. The video was produced by BKK-TV, and we thank Gerhard Reiner of BKK-TV for letting us reproduce it.

OSE TV Interview – Austria Tour from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

We just got a copy of this TV interview that we did back on the OSE tour in Austria. Michaela from Earthship Austria organized this particular event. The interview took place at a local TV station in Bad Kleinkirchheim - a well known ski resort town in Austria. Both Inga and Michaela agree ...

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From my initial survey I would estimate an ideal population of this site to be about 20-30 people.

Rules of thumb for estimation go at 5 people per intensively cultivated acre, in practice the number is higher but that’s good for a rough estimate. It’s always better to estimate low if you’re analyzing sustainability.

On that rule alone this 30 acres theoretically could support 150 people, however that is a maximum outside figure as I find people need more outside space, natural areas, and privacy to be comfortable. And in my experience it is water, not food, that determines your maximum population.

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From my initial survey I would estimate an ideal population of this site to be about 20-30 people. Rules of thumb for estimation go at 5 people per intensively cultivated acre, in practice the number is higher but that's good for a rough estimate. It's always better to estimate low if you're analyzing sustainability. On that ...

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That’s the title of Michel Bauwens’ post on the P2P Foundation blog regarding the recent conference, where I discussed our program for building the world’s first, replicable, open source, off-grid, Global Village. Read the rest of Michel’s inspiring post here. I share the feelings completely. It was the most engaging and inspiring convergence I’ve ever attended in my life, as I got a chance to meet many of the heavy-hitters from the P2P world for the first time in person. In short, a few of the many treats for me were: Smari’s crazy talk on the future of governance – the establishment of the Association of Peer to Peer Researchers – collaboration with C’mm’n, the ambitious open source car project – plus we’ll be building RepRap here within a few months. RepRap is part of a reality that will allow us to eliminate our trips to Walmarts and others in the near future. That’s a major political and practical statement. The future is here. I’ll post a video of my presentation and the RepRap adventure soon, and I will fill in the rest of the details.

That's the title of Michel Bauwens' post on the P2P Foundation blog regarding the recent conference, where I discussed our program for building the world's first, replicable, open source, off-grid, Global Village. Read the rest of Michel's inspiring post here. I share the feelings completely. It was the most engaging and inspiring convergence I've ...

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