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Conversation about baling with ground-driven carts from Draft Animal Power Network Facebook |
DGrover |
Thursday, February 26, 2015 - 12:38pm |
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New e-book, Product Dev Process for Open Source Software |
DGrover |
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - 12:32pm |
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Org Call 2/19/15 |
DGrover |
Monday, February 23, 2015 - 12:27pm |
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FARMDATA - Farm Crop Planning and Record Keeping - Webinar Recording |
DGrover |
Saturday, February 21, 2015 - 4:04pm |
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Adding Additional Documentation to Existing Tool |
edixon |
Friday, February 20, 2015 - 12:04pm |
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CAD Files |
edixon |
Friday, February 20, 2015 - 12:00pm |
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"Some people find this site hard to navigate" |
DGrover |
Thursday, February 19, 2015 - 8:52am |
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Farm Hack Pedal Power--Boston |
DGrover |
Thursday, February 19, 2015 - 8:12am |
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Lunch Discussion and Slide Show: Open Farm Technology, come get oriented |
DGrover |
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - 2:48pm |
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Fished product |
localisbest |
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - 2:25pm |
We have started building some swales running across a fairly gentle hillside. Before pulling dirt down out of the swale, we are laying small logs and slash just below the swale location and pulling the dirt onto that. It is giving use bigger mounds than we would have had using dirt alone. Because we are following the hillside, we don't have freedom to orient them east - west.
OPEN source notes from notes from Ag Kawamura at American Farmland Trust
World Agriculture has never been more abundant, safe and diverse Food is a privilege, not a right. Look at the past to realize how lucky we are now..\ crop failures.. Sacrifice a lovely maiden/ Norman Borlaug! Dust spores...Epidemic, pathonogenic crop failure That is why Norman Borlaug's generation saw that they could predict and anticipate and prevent such catastrophes . Saving millions of lives.. These are the kinds of things we have to look at the kinds of tools we have in from t of us. these are the toolsets we have to work with currently 70,000 acres taken out of production because of the drought in Caliornia
Will we have the capacity to provide for everyone. We have to have land and the capacity to continue..and the logistics we will.
hurricanes in California, "the fact that it happened before means it will happen again" embrace new concepts, ideas, technologies The challenge of getting a consistent crop off, we are looking for more tools, seeds… because of the retooling, he can keep planting even when its so wet looking for more property where you can bring that land in production desserts are among the most predictable I think these folks with little home gardens, roof gardens ( dismissive) think that we don't' need other kinds of farming, by which he means mega scale..
Franchise the hydroponics all over the plant we have plenty of water on the planet, we just have a salt problem and a logistics problem lets put cisterns under our homes atmospheric water harvesters, a new small house of the future DARPA FUNDING for swap coolers have its own energy and water systems, with very nice ' turnkey kinds of situations' collecting fresh water from boats off-shore, put it on a barge, into a reservoir, freshwater balloons
precision agriculture helps us meet the criticism about wastefulness Agriculture is not broken, its getting more dynamic every day
the more bulletproof we are, and resistant to failure the public has to stand up we need a whole army of young farmers, not young farmers, but new farmers. folks that understand it, patient , smart, tolerant, but getting it wrong is not an option we are here to work on systems of abundance humility of farming is understanding what is out of your control.
Do you have any hunters in the area? They can probably brief you on how to quickly kill a squirrel (I've just stepped on the head and pulled - but the definitions of "humane" differ depending on the jurisdiction). They may also be able to rid you of a few squirrels - they really just need pellet guns.
Was there an off-line follow up conversation on this thread?
I'm going to look deeper, but ISOBlue's specs indicate their devices are only precise to 2 to 3 meters; I'm going for the sub-foot (12" - < 0.3 meter) range of precision.
Farm Hack will only use and promote open-source software. Closed-source (proprietary) software can be referenced, but not promoted or used. This is to further the culture of collaboration, sustainability, and protection.
Is to detect current going to the speaker (probably with a relay or SCR or somesuch) of a standard smoke alarm, and then the FIDO could send a notice out. You just have to get the voltage levels right :-)
I tested the dripwall delta this spring and it was a qualified success. I had the earliest peas in victoria. There were a couple of severe frosts but also the dripwall stored enough energy in the soil and water to keep the young plants alive. I was able to measure energy transfer and it collected up to about 150 watts of heat when the sun was shining on the "wall". The wall was various things, slate tile, metal, and ceramic coated metal shelf for the oven. Also charred wood was tried. Heat gain was several degrees as the water dripped down the wall and the heat slowly transmitted along under the soil and warmed the plants gradually from the bottom. A problem was that my seedbed was too monolithic and another was that I have a spider mite infection that ruined the experiment from about April on. But for sure, it works. Energy input was about a watt. Brian October 18 2014
Go haunt the permies sites for more info. While it does release nutrients over time, wood is mostly just cellulose and lignan, and there is not a lot of nutrients in it. Two big wins: 1. It holds lots of water long term. Once saturated it will hold water all summer, so watering is hardly needed. This in turn means that the top of the soil can remain dry which hugely decreases your weeding issues.
The second thing is that the wood is rapidly colonized by fungi. Fungi create their own transport network, and some plants can tap into the the fungi network trading some sugar for a ready made root system.
The third thing is that the wood chunks provide large scale structure to the soil, and reduce packing, and create channels for air and water to move long distances.
You don't have to use logs, nor do you have to use raised beds.
You can create hugel mounds. Run them east west. Plant the south face to sun lovers, the north face to things that you want to miss the summer heat.
You can also use wood chips. Avoid sawdust and planer chips. They are too fine, and create a nitrogen debt, but wood chips from tree pruning will work, and are fine enough to till into the ground.
Go haunt the permies sites for more info. While it does release nutrients over time, wood is mostly just cellulose and lignan, and there is not a lot of nutrients in it. Two big wins: 1. It holds lots of water long term. Once saturated it will hold water all summer, so watering is hardly needed. This in turn means that the top of the soil can remain dry which hugely decreases your weeding issues.
The second thing is that the wood is rapidly colonized by fungi. Fungi create their own transport network, and some plants can tap into the the fungi network trading some sugar for a ready made root system.
The third thing is that the wood chunks provide large scale structure to the soil, and reduce packing, and create channels for air and water to move long distances.
You don't have to use logs, nor do you have to use raised beds.
You can create hugel mounds. Run them east west. Plant the south face to sun lovers, the north face to things that you want to miss the summer heat.
You can also use wood chips. Avoid sawdust and planer chips. They are too fine, and create a nitrogen debt, but wood chips from tree pruning will work, and are fine enough to till into the ground.
I built a Raspberry Pi based datalogger earlier this year. I had to do some soldering to get a few temperature sensors hooked up. Made the device host it's own wireless network SSID and had it serve a web-page with RRDtool graphs of the data as well as an option to download everything in a CSV.
This was just a prototype, but it was simple enough to set up. If I were to do it again, I'd probably use a RPi and an Arduino. The RPi is powerful enough that you can use modern tools and languages and the Arduino is excellent to doing low-level interfacing with the sensors.
I'll have a look at the existing datalogger projects and see if there is a way that I can contribute.
It's been a looong time since I've built any electronics, but the Arduino seems pretty simple. What I'm hoping to do is build a 4 to 6 channel temp setup with sensors at the end of cables. I haven't read any thing about voltage drop problems, so I'm assuming the losses would be minimal.
Last yeat I built a solar greenhouse with 36 barrels of water for heat retention. I think I can hold 50° F but I would like to sample the temperature in a number of places, to see how it's performing.
I am also planning a project around a number of parabolic collectors I have, and would like to see how they perform with different flow rates
Thanks for your information. I have never done any programming ...and I realize there are tutorials out there, but if I get stuck I might call for help.
Sorry. I had forgotten about this. I was expecting email if there was any response.
I would like a multi-channel data logger for several specific uses, and for general experimenting.
Last year I built an experimental 8 x 32' solar green house that I am solar heating with 32 drums of water for heat storage, and I would like to track its performance in various locations.
Over a period of years I have collected a number of solar collectors and I have 8 fancy 8' parabolic concentrators I would like to try using in a way dissimilar to there original use, and it would be very useful to be able to track there specific performance.
Thanks for your interest.
John
Found some decent units ( mobilefireunits.com ) online. Well, that would depend on the specifications you have in mind. Probably multiple units may be used depending the size of your barn.
Thanks Dorn. I have created an Open Shop for the challenge here: http://farmhack.net/shop/urban-farm-challenge. Can you give me some pointers on setting up a blog post (I have content) and more than happy to host an open hour or join an organisers call or both. Just let me know how to go about it.
regards, Nick
Sounds like a great fit for posting to Farm Hack. There are lots of options option's for promoting it. I would recommend opening an open shop for your organization, write a blog that can be rotated through the front page and perhaps offer to host an open hour or present on an organizers call to profile the project. Feel free to reach out to the farm hack community with questions.
Hey Dorn, Drop me a line! I'd love to talk to you more about tinkering with and repairing farm equipment for a series of articles we're working on. julia@ifixit.com
Thanks for posting this Dan!
Hi Julia, It is funny you should mention this. I was just struggling with errors on my 1992 Kobleco Excavator engine CPU - which runs a throttle from a potentiometer through stepper motor and some logic based on engine speed and hydraulic flow. It has been giving me some issues and there is no documentation in the parts or user manual other than a very rudimentary diagram which makes diagnosis very challenging. There is essentially no ODBII type interface for diagnosis. A replacement CPU and all of this tiny logic costs $3500 and the stepper motor for throttle control about $1600. Outrageous for their component value and re- programing and diagnosis would be very difficult, and it may be that there is a bad ground or other issue causing the error rather than the CPU itself. The dealer claims that they would need to bring the whole machine to the shop to run diagnostics. I see no reason why with documentation the CPU could be replaced with an arduino/raspberrypi or similar with open diagnosis and interface - that way it could be easily and cheaply replaced as part of the diagnosis and standard pots and actuators could be fit. I have also been actively replacing filter housings with marine hardware that is less proprietary to make servicing easier and less model specific inventory dependent.
I would love to see a universal engine control unit with downloadable settings that could be retrofit.
I think your service would be a great value to this community. Look forward to following your efforts.
I just got a Spotter from Home Depot for $40. It sits in my greenhouse/sunroom and monitors temperature, humidity, and light (also sound). It will send alerts to a phone or email, and I believe it will be capable of turning on and off other electronic devices, to include fans, pumps, and even window actuators. We'll see, but I'm liking the data I'm getting from it so far.
Hi Clayton. I think his biggest ask here is to be able to update the app using a mobile device. As I don't think your app is "in the cloud" maybe a way to sync the mobile device to the installed application...? Otherwise you'd have to integrate some type of web server with your app and the user would have to be able to host the installed app on the internet. Anyhow, I think that was the gist of his post is the ability to make updates while out in the field using a mobile app.
Hi Joel, I noticed that as well. I just deleted some spam that may have been causing the issue. I'll keep an eye out for this popping up again.
\ RJ
They're showing again, now. Thanks. So you could delete this - and my original red-flag comment.
We use Blaak bags - http://www.eblaak.com/dui/materialen_dui.htm and suspend these from scaffolding.
Cheers Hugh
Check out this URL for the Hangout -> https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/stream/gvj3dddhgswzc7hv6qt3t6jv5ea
We're experiencing technical difficulties, working on the hangout, more soon.
This section should also address alternative approaches to the problem addressed. If the tool has many functional components, or is very complex, it may work well to break up the posts by using "floating" wiki pages.
If anyone has a hack tool can you please tell me how you got it? I have tried over and over to get this but I am just coaxed into completing surveys and once I complete them it
RJ spent the summer testing the Open Source temperature alarm known as Fido in greenhouses--he'll be reporting back his results and observations. He'll also talk about lessons learned from working to get internet to remote greenhouses.
Please join us for our first OpenHour! You can find the livestream both here on the forum and in the tool wiki for "OpenHour". If you miss the livecast, the conversation will be recorded and available here!