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I added the proposal for a Peer-to-Peer hosted Farmer-Owned Distribution Network |
R.J. Steinert |
Thursday, February 20, 2014 - 9:24am |
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Searchable Tools |
DGrover |
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:21am |
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How to encourage community members to learn and use CAD as tool to make open source sharing stronger |
DGrover |
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:18am |
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Perfect time for UVM FarmHack Organization Launch? |
DGrover |
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:09am |
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Bring back the blog! |
DGrover |
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:04am |
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Code for BVT Documents and notes |
dorn |
Monday, February 17, 2014 - 4:08pm |
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Agricultural Lending Library @ NOFAVT Hackathon |
dorn |
Saturday, February 15, 2014 - 4:31pm |
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Agricultural Lending Library @ NOFAVT Hackathon |
dorn |
Saturday, February 15, 2014 - 4:30pm |
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Agricultural Lending Library @ NOFAVT Hackathon |
dorn |
Saturday, February 15, 2014 - 4:30pm |
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solar energy on the farm |
solartrees |
Friday, February 14, 2014 - 10:54pm |
Parsons school for design at The New School (NYC) just collaborated on a report about urban ag in the five boroughs. They may be open to collaboration. Alas I don't have any connetions, but I'm sure I'll run into someone over there eventually. I will carry this idea in my back pocket. My girlfriend recently graduated from GSAPP at Columbia University, I will also see if she has any contacts I could mine for this sort of thing.
I am a BIG fan of setting up a local co-op to have the more expensive and more rarely-used gear. I wish more people would take this idea seriously. I fully love and appreciate "equipment lust", but I believe we would all be in much better shape, financially and socially, if we bound our farming communities together through cooperative and shared usage/support/purchase/ownership of these kinds of big-ticket/rarely used items.
More to the point (to quote vinflictor):
That's it, exactly. This kind of gear SHOULD be serving 10+ farms, IMHO.
Hi Andy,
This sounds very interesting to me. I'm currently developing a general purpose long-range, weather-proofed, sensing and automation board. The communication options will include Zigbee (local wireless protocol, longer range, lower bandwith than WiFi) and 3G. The idea is to have real-time monitoring as well as user-determined logic (if sensor A reads above threshold X, do action 1) and schedules.
I would love to hear about this application and any others you may think up. Initially, I was actually thinking more along the lines of your post below which talks about the motorized flaps.
--Louis
We're considering adding thermostatically controlled shutters to two high tunnels next season and are also thinking of motorizing the roll-up sides or installing motorized drop down sides so that the sides as well as the gable peak vents can automatically open and close depending upon inside temperature.
I'd like to discuss any experiences people may have had with automated roll-up sides, specifically reliability and any cost savings/yield improvements realized as well as lower cost methods for automating the roll-up/drop down sides. Commercial systems are well out of my price range.
A walk behind garlic planter would be a real time saver for us and have much better ergonomics than hand planting. Some work has been done in Thailand developing and evaluating small scale planters, http://fme.hcmuaf.edu.vn/data/design%20and%20development%20of%20a%20garlic%20planter%20in%20thailand.pdf , this work could be used as a basis for building a similar machine, possibly using a BCS type power unit as the drive.
We're using DIG controllers for irrigation in the high tunnels and for some field irrigation, but are interested in finding a controller which has a more friendly user interface, can be accessed from any PC on our network, easily allows forced starts and stops of individual valves, ties into flow meters to track gallons being applied, allows for input from irrometers or other tools to sense soil moisture and/or rainfall, can be enables starts/stops of chemilizers for injection of materials into the irrigation water (ex. citric acid in high tunnels for pH management or compost teas) can send data to an excel spreadsheet for tracking water usage and would have the potential to use the information from the rain gages and/or irrometers to change the pre-programmed irrigation schedule, ie if we get 1" of rain in a week, automatically disable the irrigation start for that week, or in a high tunnel if soil moisture is sufficient, cancel the second scheduled watering cycle.
I'm interested in partnering with people with programming skills to build this type of tool, or talking with people with irrigation and/or industrial controls experience to see what might be available as a stock solution.
We're considering building a sprayer which we could be used in the high tunnels as a bed sprayer for greens for either foliar feeds or materials such as pyganic or entrust and would also be convertible to a sprayer for trellised crops such as cukes and tomatoes for spraying of materials like kaligreen as well as entrust, pyganic and neem oil.
Ideally the sprayer would be metered based on ground speed to ensure that materials are applied at the proper rate and would be set up so that tips can be easily changed depending upon the material being applied.
Thanks for bringing this up. The component [you mention](https://www.adafruit.com/products/735 (link is external)) is the same that I used and it will do the trick! I edited the tool page to include this.
Thanks for the feedback, Josh! I've fixed up the tool page to try to make things more clear. Here is the section that I think is relevant to your question:
Download the libraries above and unzip them. There should be three individual folders, each containing at least two files, one with a .h suffix and one with a .cpp suffix. Open your Arduino sketchbook folder. If there is already a folder there called libraries, place the library folder in there. If not, create a folder called libraries in the sketchbook folder, and drop the library folder in there. Then re-start the Arduino programming environment, and you should see your new library in the Sketch > Import Library menu.
Once your libraries are properly installed, you should have access to all the relevant code from your Arduino IDE. Please let me know if that *doesn't* clear things up - I'd like to do everything I can to make it easier for folks to build these things!
I think this is why this community is so important - to prioritize and help folks along to gather more of the skills which would otherwise keep them dependent or reduce possibilities for innovation. I think that is why "hacker spaces" are popping up that enable access to more tools, some of which are not needed every day, but make a job from being a struggle to a pleasure. There are several farms in our area that rent out space to equipment shops, so that they have quick access. Our farm does work for our own operation and a couple others, so there are a lot of models towards shared ownership/access and scale that justifies the infrastructure. Some of the approaches are to reduce the cost of the tools to accomplish the task, or to save folks from investing in tools that are less important - and that is where feedback is especially important based on what folks are actually using.
For example, there was a guy at a recent Farm Hack event who had a hand held metal circular saw that he thought was the best thing going - I had looked at them and the price always kept me away, but he made a great case for it. He didn't have the tank rental fees, gas etc. and hardly touched his torch or even the plasma cutter. In two years of my tank rentals I think I probably could have paid for it.
I also just talked with a group of farmers and they just got a TIG just so they could work on their aluminum irrigation piping. I have not made the investment myself, on the tig or the mill yet, as I can't justify it just for our operation yet, but I have been talking about sharing the shop with some other folks and adding those things in. As our operation diversifies and grows the shop becomes more important. Since we serve three farms and have a good deal of cooperative relationships I think that is what makes it possible to invest in some of this- but not all at once. I know I have a bunch of stainless tanks that I will need in the next year or so, and that may push a TIG - but even then it may be a shared investment. The mill will be a similar story . There always seem to be several in the $3000 range around here - as you mention the skill is the big factor. In this case wouldn't invest alone, but with a machinest friend of mine who is doing custom work who might co-locate. He wouldn't need it every day either. I provide the space, he provides expertise and it is conveniently available when it is needed- but for both of us the upcoming projects need to justify the space, the time and the expense.
Ideally I would like to see farmhack help link up the services you mention with farmers through the tools pages. If done well, the documentation is good enough to take it to a custom shop, or if the skills and tools are there on-farm then all the better. Some of the tools don't need to be owned but I think farm hackers should know what is possible and how to access tools. I see it as helping each other breaking down barriers, reduce the intimidation factor for some of these skills and become more independent through greater collaboration.
Thanks Dorn! All about vetting out each persons skills, and practical forte'- why we are here. I agree with your points, but in the same sense, as we lay groundwork in this community- we realize many folks have varying talent. On that point- in the old days we would have gone to the nearest "blacksmith"/ Machine shop / Ferrier, buddy-with-a-better-shop when we couldn't keep it simple with our own basic set of tools. That doesn't mean "make it vs. buy it", it just means working smart, and not investing a gazzillion bucks on a full-on metal shop, when it isn't necessary on an average farm workday. Some other guy/gal might have other talent/equipment. I mean really, how many practical farmers need an endmill -to the extend of that equipment investment, but more importantly, the time it takes to learn the nuances of milling a new part from stock. Sure, alot of my parts are metal, but no way does it consume that much of my workload- if made correctly, a metal part shouldn't keep me in my metalshop all day. With the equipment listed- one could service 10+ area farmers. Kinda pointless to have all this stuff on every farm, no? I spend much more time worrying about crop/animal health, USDA regs, water pumps, harvest distro, etc. So, I kinda have to go back on my earlier statement: Any "Farm Hack" realist will understand that Water management is incredibly more important to start "Wikiing" over your $50,000 metalshop wishlist. Again, just my 2 cents/ input/ personal experience
On our farm we have an equipment shop, and black smith shop, and a wood shop each with different sets of kits and tools. This thread started as simply documenting the original discussion from the Intervale Farm Hack and was around prioritizing farm shop tools for fabrication of farm tools and prototyping. The original post mentioned that the next step was to prioritize organize and expand. An earlier post also opened up a wiki for modifying organizing and prioritizing http://farmhack.net/wiki/farm-shop-basics (link is external). It is fair to say that the focus was on metal, but for fabrication of farm tools, much of the work on our farm does tend to be metal work. The level of equipment needed will really be dictated by the scale and type of operation. You may also notice that on the "to do" list is to separate out advanced fabrication from the basics, and also that urban needs will be different than fabrication or repair. From my perspective there are certain tools that make a lot possible and I know that I wish I had purchased years ago. For example, a metal cutting bandsaw for cutting stock is one of the most used pieces of equipment in my shop - but until I got it I didn't know what I was missing. I haven't put a bridgeport on my own priority list, but it isn't far off and if I had one it would get weekly use redoing bushings, and opening up larger holes for implement pins etc. that the drill press simply isn't set up for. I know that the better our farm shop gets the faster the turn around time and the higher quality the implements that we either create of modify. The faster we can get repairs done or modifications done the more ideas we can try in the field and the better the results on the ground. I agree with the principle of keep it simple, but also I know when there is a build vs. buy calculation that I would rather put the investment in the tools to build than into new paint and waiting for a part to ship from who knows where in the middle of planting or harvest.
I would love to see a tread and tool entries for fabrication of tools themselves.
Some of the tools I could see documented for farm shops that could be fairly easily fabricated:
Gantry crane
metal shear
shop press
forge
power hammer
heavy shop tables
(others)??
there are forums out there for build it yourself machine tools - but the build vs. buy is a little tougher on those (at least for me)
but perhaps what might be needed are some categories of tools associated with fabrication of particular types of farm activities for example:
heavy farm equipment fabrication
light farm implement fabrication
hand tool fabrication tools
tractor repair - engine/transmission/fuel/frame/body etc.
General electrical
power transfer (gearboxes, chains, bearings etc.)
hydraulic and pneumatic systems
irrigation/animal water systems/general farm plumbing including fuel transfer etc.
fencing
farm building construction
(others?) each of these could have their own floating wiki to build out and prioritize?
I'm a little confused. ( i usually am). But this list looks more like dremers list for a "Metal Shop". When looking at MY shop/setup, this list merely covers the "metal" side, and is used partially compared to all the other "fix-it" methods in my routine.
Without going too crazy with my own list- here are things I think are essential, and missing from this list: soldering iron? (lots of electrical connections/ electronics in most items these days) Backup electrical hack kits like Transistors/Resistors/Caps, wire leads, limit switches, multimeter (more than one) are all essential. Plumbing parts? Come on! Farms rely on WATER, and plumbing tools/repair supplies are crucial. Backup pumps, piping, hoses, irrigation connectors, Pvc bits, impellers, self-adhering super tape, etc. This is MUCH more important than metalshop equipment IMO, Water management is everything.
Wood! shoring something up with 2x4's or sheets of ply are always used in numerous ways. I use my miter saw 10x more than any welder. .. and I love to have an excuse to weld. Table saw? oh yeah.
I have a flashlight and a 4-in-1 screwdriver in every place i work, car, tractor, etc. Multi-tool and a blade are always in my pocket. Breaker bar- gotta have it. Wrenches- good ones, SAE and Metric. Mini- tweaker screwdriver sets, cuz manufacturers are making screws smaller and cheaper. Sledges and impact hammers, soft and hard. Files, rat-tails, rasps - I use all the time, You wont find me trimming a small 1 minute job on a mill when i can just file it down. Speedy stitcher- Yes, the leather/canvas repair stitcher, cuz not everything is made of metal- great tool, will last forever. Small butane torches- why lug a big Victor out when you need to loosen a bolt? Ranger Bands- these are just old inner-tubes chopped into bands of rubber. Crazy useful for everything from cord management to wrapping up a stray wire/tube/pipe. also work as mini clamps. Measuring and layout tools- this is a list in itself, and certainly more important than much of the gear on the above list. If you cant make a straight line, you aren't ready for TIG welding. incremental tools, straight edges, compasses, protractors, angle finders- learn this before you go out and drop cash on an English Wheel! Air tools? Tire repair kit? First Aid/ Trauma pack? I know you have some safety gear, well- you need a human mending kit too. Jack? it's like a clamp for your car/heavy equipment. Get some. Arbor press, rivet setter, hex wrenches, bailing wire, fence wrench, lineman's pliers, duct tape, pipe clamps, heavy tarpaulins- all MUCH more essential than the welder's dream rig listed above.
on the metalwork side- i think your list is great, but overwhelmingly complicated. Do you really need all of this stuff or could you be more resourceful? the website is farmHACK right? Much can be done with less, and you don't always need a bridgeport and 3 different welding methods at the ready. Oh and you forgot about marking fluid. if you are in a metalshop, you'll no doubt need some of the blue stuff.
Not trying to be critical, but it seems this is quite heavy on metalworking. Many of the best "farm hackers" i have known don't have half this stuff. My grandfather, and yours too probably, did most metalwork with a Victor torch, a vice and a hammer, not much else. And when the irrigation pump starts to smoke, you're gonna need a different set of tools to diagnose the problem. the Blacksmiths creed is there, this list isn't living up to it.
We borrowed the transplanter from Muddy Fingers earlier this year, and definitely liked it. We had troubles with clogging the chute with plants that had grown quite leggy and were falling over. The paper sections also kept breaking since they should have been planted a few weeks earlier. But other than user error, it worked great.
I've been using the paperpot transplanter on my farm since 2009 and have been very happy with the results. It does a great job for me with alliums, beets, turnips, spinach, asian greens, small lettuces, kohlrabi and several other crops. The economics for the tool are compelling - it can easily pay for itself in less than one year.
I believe Louis was indicating that we could do positioning without GPS; which is technically correct but not necessarily desirable, and assumes we know exactly where the anchor points (aka base stations) are located.
Synchronization of the end points (ear tags) with the anchor point is no longer required since the anchor point will be sending the signal to the end points (ear tags), which will just echo it back; and all timing (with a 700 MHz clock) occurs on the anchor point. However, synchronization of the anchor points will be required for the reasons you pointed out. Since all the anchor points will have GPS's on them, this can be done with reasonable accuracy, and be checked/re-done frequently.
Latency in the radio, GPS, and CPU (deterministic and non-deterministic) will have to be empirically determined. And we'll have to re-run the tests with every new batch of processors, CPUs, GPSs and XBees. Sigh.
The majority of the GPS errors in location of the Base Stations for the Farm Item Locator will be exactly the same for each base station. Some of the errors are accounted for by differential GPS and WAAS GPS correctors, but this just gets you down to the meter to three meter accuracy. In surveying, the errors and corrections are computed locally at a base station to the survey and then applied, either immediately (RTK) or in post processing (PPK). A professional grade base station costs upward from $50k. Not in the budget for this project.
I wonder if we can't cobble together a low end version of the same concept? We might have to actually survey in the location of one station, the base-base station, and the others could figure out where they are. A good RTK/PPK positon (link is external) (used on objects that move, like cows and tractors) would have accuracy of a few inches.
The problem of synchronization without GPS is a difficult one. Each CPU clock will drift at a different rate which may be temperature dependent. While it is possible to build a mesh protocol to find a common time, it will require both transceiver and CPU resources which might need to be used for other things at the time. The GPS with PPS is ultra accurate PPS signals have an accuracy ranging from a 12 picoseconds to a few microseconds per second, or 2.0 nanoseconds to a few milliseconds per day (link is external) and sets a common standard time for anything that uses it. There may still be problems finding deterministic latencies in the radio and CPU.
Good find! To save on anchor costs, I reckon at most three need GPS.
But turn-around does eliminate the need for synchronization at least...
Synchronization won't be too bad since distance will be easier to calculate (even without GPS) since both sides have good & identical clocks. Actually, it would be neat to do this without GPS which makes this system entirely relative until you take some global references from GPS!
The differential times are all that's needed from the anchor points to calculate the distances, so it would make the logic/coding a lot easier.
Hey guys,
Sorry I'm probably late to the game but I have been tied up moving into a new apartment and office last week. This discussion has made great reading material though!
Just to make sure I've understood, it's settled that a good clock is only needed on the anchor station? Seems like this turn-around technique is a nice solution and will yield an absolute answer for each individual anchor (ie: it will tell you node 32 is 50m away).
I just wanted to offer another idea which I thought came up in one of the discussion threads but I can't seem to find and that's to use ratios:
If you have 3 anchors and they all receive the SAME signal from a node, they will have three different times when they clocked in the message (let's say, 00:01, 00:02, 00:03). The differential in time received will help determine the relative difference of the node (that is, if the node is distance X away from node 3, then it is 2x/3 from node 2, and x/3 from node 1 - a unique point satisfies that relation). I like the turn-around method better since it immediately yields absolute distance and doesn't require synchronization but if that becomes a problem for technical reasons, this could be another approach.
I find the design challenge of fitting the gasifier components on a tractor daunting, and have thought mostly about sticking with stationary applications - but the install at the driveonwood site looks like it would be fairly functional.
The GEK site lists several folks in my area in New England some of whom I have I have connected with. This winter there was some talk about doing a tour of all the functional units. I will attempt to photograph and document what I learn. I am especially interested in the co-generation potential and using it to provide heat and power for our farm buildings. I think a big variable to make it viable in an on-farm installation over the longer haul will be efficient chipping, storage, drying and general materials management to keep it fed with high quality fuel. I think there is a lot in developing on-farm systems and appropriate affordable equipment and associated infrastructure.
I have been thinking about a 10KW unit which could also be used to pump water to holding ponds built on the high spots when there is extra capacity. The holding ponds would initially be used for irrigation and animal water, but could be fitted with a microhydro to act like a battery of sorts. My thought is to also use the grid as a backup through a transfer switch when the unit is not running.
The forums at All Power Labs is a great resource that I have been using to try and get myself up to speed. http://gekgasifier.com/forums/ (link is external)
This seems like a great idea, but will take a lot of informal know how. The closest I have come to finding a modern working example of this historically well proven concept is here, http://driveonwood.com/forum/169 (link is external).
Some good news about the human-powered, prone-position harvester.. A group at Farm Hack - Iowa was just discussing that earlier this Summer , check their "Quadracycle Harvester/Weeder" plans, here:
http://www.farmhack.net/forums/charrette-group-quadracycle-harvesterweeder (link is external)
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Another tool that is being used just outside of Ithaca, is the Japanese Paper Pot Transplanter. Muddy Fingers Farm in Hector NY has begun to use this transplanter, and I hope to hear some feedback about their experience with it during the design charrettes-- the way it works is amazing.
(Check out a brief video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWd8gBJgEMY (link is external) )
or
( Check out one of the only farmer-suppliers in America who carries these instruments: www.smallfarmworks.com (link is external) )
-- Let us know if you are interested in learning more about the transplanter by replying below:
I like the two way transmission idea. The anchor point doesn't have to be quite as fast - but still needs to be able to sense the departure and return times within 300 microseconds. And we can "fake" a signal by wiring the TX to the RX on the ear tag.
I too am making the assumption that turn-around time is constant - at least between the XBees. We'll need to empirically test how much latency the mesh network adds too.
I'll start looking at a device driver to do this (because it needs to be done at interrupt level to keep the OS from introducing latency). Once I get the driver done and tested, we'll need more beaglebones and XBees to test/write the trilateralization logic.
Oh, I guess we'll be needing the GPS interface logic written too. That is critical for translating the "local" positioning info into global positions.
So, I guess the real next step is software architecture planning.
RFID requires close proximity to read the tags (the military has a system that can read tags up to 300' away - but it requires a comparatively large tag and a high powered reader - neither of which are suitable for our application.) EZ-Pass uses a high powered reader, but even its range is about 30'. Most marathon RFID systems need a proximity of 7' or less.
Our application needs a "proximity" that's a MINIMUM of 300' (outdoor; line-of-site), which our prototype XBee's meet - and are a lot cheaper than RFID tags with equivalent range; better proximity (for farms) would be in terms of thousands of feet or miles, which the XBee Pros give - but they consume more power. Rangeland would require ranges in miles to tens of miles. But simply adding anchor points may accomplish the same purpose.
Unfortunately, cell phones don't provide sub-meter accuracy. There are several systems in use by the cell manufacturers, Wikipedia (link is external) has a good description of the various techniques. Of course, most farms are located in rural areas - notorious for lack of cell towers.
I originally wanted to have "inch" accuracy, but I'm willing to be a little sloppy on that. I do need identification of the tag, and get as close as possible; which is why I wanted a very high resolution clock on the radios. With synchronized high resolution clocks on both sides of the signal, we can calculate a rather precise distance between the endpoints, and not have to worry about software/interfacing latencies. (Although I believe the XBee's mesh networking may complicate or render that approach impossible. Without further testing, we can't be sure.)
I should point out that the XBee's provide a received signal strength metric, but its only accurate to 2 decimal places (-40db to current gain setting). But I don't believe this will provide sufficient accuracy in determining distance.
Okay. RFID is out for this project. How about an active transponder, maybe done with the Xbee? With this the positioning is done by the base stations. All that would be necessary on the tags would be to transmit replies to a queries from the base stations. I assume (big word here) that the turn-around time from request received to reply transmitted could be held constant. From my sketchy reading and conversations with cohorts here at CCOM (Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping), the clock error problem is eliminated in this way. The positioning is determined by the sum of the two way transmission and the turn around time.