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I would like more information. How do I contact you? john_100term@yahoo.ca is my e mail address. |
John dePass |
Monday, June 23, 2014 - 5:57am |
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Arduino Humidity, Temp and Amperage Monitor |
jlbrian7 |
Monday, June 16, 2014 - 10:08pm |
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Where can I find the source code for Cultivar's RainCloud? |
R.J. Steinert |
Friday, June 13, 2014 - 11:59am |
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Cool Crop Planning Tool! |
Bill |
Friday, June 13, 2014 - 9:53am |
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New Topic Type, the "Problem Statement" |
R.J. Steinert |
Thursday, June 12, 2014 - 9:34am |
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iFARM on NHPR |
dorn |
Saturday, June 7, 2014 - 4:54pm |
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Forbes article on Open Water |
dorn |
Saturday, June 7, 2014 - 4:50pm |
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Starting work on software |
jbd |
Saturday, June 7, 2014 - 10:05am |
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Farm Hack Kentucky: Small Scale Grain Production |
cjgahn |
Friday, June 6, 2014 - 12:01pm |
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Checkout the video of the new Raspberry Pi based Fido. It's a plug and play temperature alarm that sends text messages! |
R.J. Steinert |
Thursday, June 5, 2014 - 9:45am |
Hello, THanks to Emily, we have a PDF of the proposed basic triangles using the american steel recommended by Dorn. The gussets (plating) and the attachment brackets are left off in this drawing, since they will be the same as the french version, but in 2.5 " x .5" flat bar. A single 20' piece of the c channel makes 4 implement triangles. A single 24' piece of the square tubing makes 3 tractor triangles. i took the liberty of makig the bottom element of the tractor triangle tubing instead of flat stock. This means the open ends will need plating, but there may be other advantages. For me, it's an advantage to use metal that i can weld with the flux core mini MIG. Please look at the attached drawings, suggest changes to the design soon! In the french document, the implement triangle is welded to the implement, or, for the articulating implements, studs are mounted and welded in place. Do french farms have 50 amp outlets at the end of the rows? Would it be better for the implement triangle to attach so that it is removable without special tools? How will the implement triangle attach to your implement at the bottom links? If your implement has bolt on studs for the bottom links to engage, can we remove the bolt on studs and just bolt the implement to brackets welded on to the bottom of the implement triangle? What is the distance between the corresponding brackets on your implement (s)? The issue here is that the bottom links on the tractor SWING in the horizontal plane, and therefore can engage the fixed studs on the implement. On the implement triangle, no such swinging. Therefore a set of rigid brackets could be welded to the implement triangle at a distance apart so they can overlap (just wider than or narrower than) the brackets on the implement and a 1" bolt slipped through the bracket's corresponding holes. Your thoughts? lups. Dorn, if you want to move this to the farmhack discussion, please do. And please send me a link to it so i can follow.
Hello, metal fabricators seem interested in the Build IT weekend here at the firehouse, November 9 and 10. i have yet to hear from lots of farms but i assume after the frost farmers will have time to get interested. i am about to (this week) enlist Emily's help making a 3D model for "la version americaine" of the triangle attacher. i will use Dorn's recommendation of 2.5 " by 11g square tubing nesting in 3x4.1 c channel. Will the square tubing nest deeply enough? i solicit any other comments about the design. For example, on the tractor triangle the bottom element (part E3) is simply a piece of thick flat stock. Should it have a web? Could it be just another piece of square tubing (same amount of steel)? Another question i have: Is the implement triangle always welded to the implement? Does the articulating implement triangle also have to be fabricated around the implement. Is there a way to make the implement triangle just bolt on or pin on so that they can be completely fabricated separate from the implements? Also, if there is anything an american farmer knows is different on american three point hitches from french ones, we could make changes. For example, the top link to bottom link vertical distance is given as 488 mm (19 1/4") . Is that OK? Also, the hole sizes for the links and the bar sizes for the implements. Are these good? And the spacing of the link brackets, 2" for the top link and 2 5/32" for the bottoms; is that standard here? The brackets that reach out from the tractor triangle and grab the links onthe tractor are specified as 9/16" thick. The problem here is that i was hoping to cut the holes with my plasma cutter, which can only cut up to about 3/8 inch thick. i am therefore of a mind to make all the parts with holes 3/8" strap unless someone thinks that is really to thin. i know "la robustesse de cette piece ne peut pas etre negligee blah blah blah..." If necessary the holes can be cut with a blow torch, but with my puny drill press: Jamais!. Maybe 3/8 can be used and a little gusset plated over the top between the two brackets to reinforce them... i hope to get the design done this week. THen, find out how many we will build and order the steel. The square tubing and channel will be new metal, while the strap and plate i hope to get scrap. i think we should be able to construct one or two sets of these in a weekend. i only have one 50 amp outlet and one stick welder. Does anyone have a mobile welder? Also, can people bring extra leathers, goggles, earphones, welding shields, gloves, welding magnets, and quick clamps? Finally, does anyone want to help pay forthe steel, welding rod (i'm thnkgin 6013, 5/32", but open to suggestions) , and abrasive discs we will burn through! THanks! lu
El's hackpad
RJ and I have started testing Hackpad as an additional tool for collaborative documentation. We may be able to integrate it directly into the Farm hack structure, but for now we can embed links to our documents and set permissions at the document level.
Here is a link to some introductory documents to test this concept with
https://farmhack.hackpad.com/Welcome-to-hackpad-the-collaborative-notepa...
https://farmhack.hackpad.com/Farm-Hack-Web-Committee-To-Do-List-ftldHkz5YdI
https://farmhack.hackpad.com/ep/group/pp6kSpg9D5V
test...
I have been meaning to get out to the Port City maker Space - amazing that we have to go to Queens to meet. We are also working on another NH event for next year with a whole bunch of partners that I would love to get you involved with. Drop me a personal e-mail and lets catch up in person soon.
As a longtime online stalker of farmhack it was great to finally meet you guys and see some of the tools in action. Dorn, I would love to chat further and invite you to represent Farm Hack at the up coming Harvest Festival at Port City Makerspace in Portsmouth NH on Saturday Nov 16th.
http://www.portcitymakerspace.com/index.cfm/calendar/wild-west-havest-fest/
Hi isdale - welcome to the website! You can browse lots of projets in the Tools section :)
I just wanted to share a picture with everyone of the tools in the truck. It's kind of funny for me to see all those interesting tools loaded up like that.
I was very pleased to find you at The Faire this past weekend. I'm looking forward to digging into the site and community more. I run a maker space on the island of Maui, and am active with the local Farmers Union United. It is very cool to see others bringing hacking to agriculture
I'm more of an engineer than a farmer, but I thought it'd be fun to browse seeds. I realized that I had to prompt it with a word and the only thing I could think of was "carrot". That's OK - I like carrots.
I like the clean design but I wonder if you could allow browsing your database? You could keep things clean by just using a drop down or something... Just a thought.
These diagrams are great and should get moved over to the fido or yet to be posted bee and hive tool wiki...
Great to meet you at Maker Faire as well Ryan. I really appreciate the work that you are doing and hope that we can help find more applications and cross pollination with other Farm Hack projects. It would be great if you are able to post a tool wiki about your product - I am happy to answer questions and help how ever I can. Drop me a private e-mail any time.
Good luck on the SBIR grant!
It as nice meeting you at Maker Faire. Here's the link to your Kickstarter for folks who might be looking for it. It sounds like a cool project for controlling irrigation. We'd love to see some documentation for it on the Farm Hack Tools Wiki. For folks interested in monitoring weather data on their farm, check out the Apitronics Weather Buff package that will be available until October 5th on Kickstarter.
R.J.
It was great to meet you as well! I will be happy to post more info before long. This week looks to be crazy as we are working with Washinton State University to submit a proposal to the UNSD SBIR solicitation and wrap up the Kickstarter campaign. Thanks for adding a link to our Kickstarter. I hope both of our projects are successful! I will look to support yours now!
Best, Ryan
Sounds about right- post it and lets let the wiki process refine...
Hi Adam, This sounds like a cool project you're working on. I see you posted some detail in the forum for this tool. You could also place the description on the Wiki page for this tool. In case you missed it on this tool's page, the button to edit is a pencil icon with small text that says "edit this wiki". I'm looking forward to hearing more about this project :-).
-RJ
Hi Will, this sounds like a cool event and it's right near my parent's place in Waterford, VT! Yay! If you title the post like I titled this comment you might grab some more eye balls given that the event is coming right up.
Please post information from and about this event in this forum
search rat terriers. and lots of other terrier breads will work as well. they are very good and diligent mice and rat control. generally un interested in vegetables too.
Hey friends. I'm Joshua, recently moved into my own place with 5 acres after many years of plotting what to do with my life. I'm currently an I.T. tech but the stress is killing me slowly. I decided I need to do something more healthy and less stressful so I bought my current place and after almost a year of making it livable I'm soon to start working on my small farming projects. I'll be using my techie knowledge to automate and integrate as much of the process with technology as I can, for ease of use reasons. (I live alone and have a degenerative muscle disorder) I plan also to set up a grid-tied solar/wind power system that fully covers all my power use and more. The land I purchased is terrible for normal farming but I'm going to make it work. Its fill of ravines and hills and woody areas, but there are some places that I can still use. I will be building, starting in the spring, a medium hoop house for my first greenhouse aquaponics system. It will have the usual starting plants like Kale, strawberries, and zucchini. The fish I plan to use are of course tilapia, I cant get enough of them, so yummy. I plan to start the hoop house on top of my current well house since its falling apart, has electricity already ran to it, and will be the water source. Once I get a small 50x20-ish area started I'll expand from there. I also have about 2 acres of relatively flat ground, about an acre in 2 separate places. One will be a bamboo nursery growing as many types of bamboo that will grow in this climate, and the second area will be a timber bamboo grove. I've already started collecting bamboos which will be growing in these 4' wide BigBagBeds I've found online until I get the grove area flattened and cleared better and a nice trench dug on the perimeter so my neighbors don't shoot me in the face if the bamboo escaped. This will also help prevent further erosion of the area that started after the previous owner built a shabby pond. This patch of nature is rough and I'm trying my best to work with it instead of ravaging it. Wish me luck. :p
Hope this root washer would be really very beneficial for the organic vegetable farms and would sort out most of the problem of the farmers they were facing since long.
Learned recently that the all-crop harvester, made between 1930-60's, is being used to dehull spelt.
I hope to learn more about what kind of rate the machine is doing it.
http://www.forum.allcropharvester.com/yaf_postst88_Spelt-Dehulling.aspx
Surely we will post our plans here once they are ready. Till then others can also post their work here. Visit us for more details.
I am highly scared of these rodents and therefore I always have effective services to help me get rid of them. More details on these are available at http://termitesvic.com.au/pest-control/rodent-control online.
Ok, I am not sure which part you hope will be simple, lets focus on the toaster oven because that will take the most electricity. You have to know how much power you are going to need. An average toaster oven uses 750-1100 watts. So you will need an inverter that can handle that large of a load, lets call it 1000 watts. Next is the battery, an average car battery doesn't like to be drained and recharged all the time. You need to look to a deep cycle or marine battery. A good deep cycle battery is rated for about 100 amp-hours (that means it can do 1 amp for 100 hours or 100 amps for one hour). We also know that Watts=volts x amps, so 100 amp-hours at 12 volts is going to give you 1200 watts-hours. So a good battery will only run that toaster oven for about an hour. So you need to know how many minutes to toast the cheese crisp and how many you want to sell in a day.
So what if it is also hooked to a solar panel? well the solar panel will be rated in watts, and you need something to charge the batter equal to the amount of watts you are using. This is likely going to be a big panel, or take a lot of lot of time.
Finally, I would recommend a fossil fuel. Propane, is the most efficient...find a way to make the cheese crisps with propane and just run lights (LEDs) and music with the battery and solar panel.
I hope this helps. I am not an expert, but my dad is and a bit has rubbed off on me. Jenna
Ok, so if anyone is following this I finally got it all hooked up and tested today and it works!!! I tested it out by filling a 20L bucket at one spray station with and without the pump, and the filling 2 buckets simultaneously at 2 spray stations. See attached graphic. I was able to fill one bucket 35% faster with the pumping setup than before and 2 buckets 45% faster. I was even able to fill 2 buckets with the pump faster than 1 bucket without the pump. I did, however, go a bit over my budget.
$230 - 3/4hp Shallow Well Jet Pump $140 - 250 gallon water tank $30 - electric float switch $145 - all the plumbing filltings
I hope this helps someone. I have a third spray station roughed in, but haven't set it up yet. If anyone is curious you can see some pics of the building of the wash station on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.458199554207665.117200.393205067373781&type=3
Jenna
Hi everyone! My name is Missy, I'm the owner and CSA Manager of a small 30 acre farm and orchard in Michigan. We use natural and orgainc practices in our farming. We have about 300 apple and pear trees and just over a half acre in veggie production. This year we started growing our own grain and hay for our animals and are looking into becoming a horse powered farm. We raise mostly herirtage livestock and heirloom veggies. Last winter we started growing year round and selling to restaurants and this year we hope to add a high tunnel to increese our winter growing possibilities. I look forward to all the great ideas on farmhack and hope to use a few of them.
Ok, I think this might work, I found a 3/4 hp jet pump on sale, and drew up a schematic for how it should work. The jet pump comes with electronic pressure control, which I am curious to see how it works. The idea is...
1) Under light use the pump in the house provides enough pressure that the jet pump doesn't kick in. 2) The water cube is always full because of the float valve, if the cube goes empty then the float switch cuts the power to the pump. 3) Under heavy use at the wash station, the jet pump turns on, closes the check valve and provides enough pressure at the wash station.
I am hoping to take it to my local plumber tomorrow to see what he thinks, but the veggies are starting to come in from the field and we are already beginning to feel the lack of water pressure when there are 2+ farmers washing.
jenna
Check out this project to free the aquaponic and greenhouse information. Aquaponics is bringing fresh water to the parched realities of small farmers, struggling communities, and consumers. Aquaponics' clever merging of proven agricultural techniques delivers a sustainable, year-round production of fresh fish, fruits, vegetables, herbs, sprouts, and livestock fodder, and has provided small farmers with an invaluable tool which is both profitable and environmentally regenerative. The use of aquaponics greatly reduces the amount of water needed to raise fish and grow produce by traditional methods, while assuring quality and purity in the final consumer product.
Our project: COSAG- Commercial Open-Source Sustainable Aquaponic Greenhouse, will coalesce the expansive knowledge and experience of the industry and our team into a functioning 3,000 sq ft prototype capable of producing 500 pounds of produce, 125 pounds of fish, and 5000+ pounds of sprouts and livestock fodder a week. Our team has over 60 years of experience collectively in fields related to COSAG: hydroponics, greenhouse production, the food supply industry, small scale organic agriculture, open source programming, and sustainable construction. This experience, and that of our partner contributors HAPI and Open Source Ecology, have contributed a great deal of ingenuity to the COSAG project. We have whittled our construction material and start up expenses down to $25 per sq ft: less than half that of comparable off-the-shelf aquaponic greenhouses. http://igg.me/at/COSAG/x/3439941