Product Release

Archived Posts from this Category

Wed 24 Nov 2010

Early Adopters

Posted by Marcin

Meet Dave Garrett, who is an early adopter and a True Fan. He dropped in for a surprise visit from 350 miles away – so we could finally meet in person while we were doing our modular CEB construction. Dave is supporting our work by a purchase order for a complete package of The Liberator CEB Press (full product release), LifeTrac open source tractor prototype III, and Soil Pulverizer prototype III. Hear our discussion on other early adopters, such as Columbus and Edison.

Early Adopters from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

Categories: Organizational Development, Product Release, Production

[6] Comments

Wed 27 Jan 2010

Initial CEB CAD Drawings

Posted by Marcin

Here are the initial CAD drawings for the CEB press, The Liberator Beta v2.0. You can download these drawing interchange format (dxf) files at the Open+Pario project repository. You can view dxf files with QCad, AutoCAD, Lx-Viewer, or many other applications. Note that this is work in progress, and the drawings will be updated as time goes on. New files will appear at the repository as soon as they are available.

Categories: CAD, Collaboration Platform, Compressed Earth Block Press, Documentation, Free Business Models, Global Village Construction Set, Open Source Product Development Pipeline, Permafacture, Product Release

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Sat 28 Nov 2009

CEB Machine Production: Rocket Fuel for Post-Scarcity Economic Development?

Posted by Marcin

We have our first sale of The Liberator CEB press. Maureen, one of our True Fans, will get her hands on an automated version of The Liberator – The Liberator Beta v2.0. We are expecting 8-12 bricks per minute for this machine. We’ve also discussed collaborating on hands-on CEB construction workshops – which is especially attractive for a machine of this caliber. Thus, Maureen is both a supporter and co-developer of the CEB enterprise.

This marks a historic moment for free enterprise development (see last post for what we mean by free enterprise). To my knowledge, we are demonstrating the first case of free enterprise in the world for high-performance, economically-significant, modern technology. If you know of others, please let us know – and we’ll be quick to collaborate and push forward the frontiers of post-scarcity economics.
(more…)

Categories: Compressed Earth Block Press, Free Business Models, Open Collaboration, Open Source Ecology, Product Release

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Wed 4 Nov 2009

Product

Posted by Marcin

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…)

Categories: Accomplishments, Compressed Earth Block Press, Open Source Economic Development, Post-scarcity, Product Release

[18] Comments

Thu 29 Oct 2009

Pressing Times

Posted by Marcin

Time is ticking before Product Release of The Liberator. Some last minute adjustments are forthcoming, before we release Beta Version 1.0. Here are some scenes from field testing.

First, we carry it over to the work place with the LifeTrac forks. LifeTrac makes for Air CEB, but The Liberator Prototype II weighs 1922 pounds total.

air-ceb-small

The machine was buried 3 feet down to facilitate soil loading, while the support legs rest on the surface. The soil grate was added.

grate-addition-sm

Second, we use the Soil Pulverizer/Loader for the first time in the CEB workflow to grind a pile of soil. Since rainy weather did not allow for a single day of soil digging for this entire month, this soil is from inside the workshop – we’re lowering the floor.

pulverizer-loading-sm

Then the Soil Pulverizer/Loader dumps the soil into the 6′ wide hopper, which is getting its first use under real working conditions:

soil-on-hopper-sm

Third, we turn on the Power Cube – which you see in the background in the above photos riding on MicroTrac – for the first time in the real CEB application, and press bricks using 10 gallon per minute hydrauilic flow at 2400 PSI.

bricks

Compared to the Liberator Prototype I, the bricks are thicker and smoother. Both are features of the finer soil filling the compression chamber  – achieved by both the Pulverizer and the grate. The compression chamber fills more completely and leaves no traces of grain boundaries in the pressed brick:

brick

The white spots are gravel chunks, care of our workshop floor.

Our observations so far are: (more…)

Categories: Accomplishments, Compressed Earth Block Press, Open Source Product Development Pipeline, Product Release

[5] Comments

Tue 20 Oct 2009

Dear True Fans

Posted by Marcin

I would like to share today’s letter to our True Fans with the greater world. It provides the latest insights on the Factor e Farm experiment.

Dear True Fans and Supporters,

First of all, thank you all for your unwavering support. You have all demonstrated commitment to our work by putting your money and your time into moving us forward. Your support is essential to a baseline level of funding for our work at Factor e Farm.

I’d like to announce a conference call for this Friday, 11 AM GMT -6 (Chicago and Kansas City – USA time). If you’d like to participate, please refer to the conference call procedure and policy – http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Conference_Call_Policy . This will be a weekly call, and it is our second to date.

The topics are several, focusing around the exciting prospects of perhaps the most important day of Factor e Farm to date on Nov, 1, 2009 – product release of the modular, high performance, open source CEB Press – The Liberator. Here are the items for discussion.

Initial product release – a Beta Version 1.0 – will include a manual machine, with a large, tractor-loaded hopper and grate, that can produce between 5-7 bricks per minute. The power source is external and modular, and so it the Arduino-based controller for automatic control. Both are not included in the initial release, but will be offered as modules in further releases. Product Release means formulating the hardware license, and associated enterprise, PR, and marketing strategies. This also provides a chance to refine OSE Specifications – for branding our products in a groundbreaking way. We are prividing thought leadership and practice on the creation of post-scarcity economics. (more…)

Categories: 1000 True Fans - 1000 Global Villages, Challenges, Collaboration Platform, Factor e Farm, Global Village Construction Set, Infrastructure, Open Collaboration, Open Everything, People, Post-scarcity, Product Release, Proposals, Viral Village

[11] Comments