Spike Up
A bale spike comes in handy in many situations. It’ typically used to move large, 2000 pound hay bales around. With the rainy weather here, some farmers were not able to keep their hay from rottings, so we got our hands on 18 additional hay bales...
HydraRaptor’s Second Child
Chris Palmer of the HydraRaptor project just printed us a copy of parts for RepRap – the 3D printer that can print a copy of itself. Chris is an avid developer on the RepRap team, and the documentation of his work is superb. He has already printed...
Soil Pulverizer: Prototype 1 Complete
In preparation for CEB construction – and in particular for the Vault Construction Workshop introduced in the last post, here is the soil pulverizer construction and testing of our first prototype. We started on the drawing board: and moved on to...
Taking it to the Next Level: CEB Vault Construction
We’ve got some great news on Inga’s House. We have succeeded in inviting Dipl.-Ing. Dittmar Hecken. He is the hands-on instructor from the Earth Building Course that Inga attended at the University of Kassel, in Germany. University of Kassel...
Tornado Warning
Did you ever wonder what it is like to be in the middle of a tornado warning? Here’s a warning that passed through Factor e Farm a few weeks ago. Sectacular cloud formations were moving in opposite directions, and it was very quiet on the ground,...
Open Source Biodiesel Tutorial
Here we show the complete documentation of a biodiesel production run. The video shows the process from oil settling to fueling the car – with titration and addition of reactants in between. We used 5 parts of waste vegetable oil to one part methanol,...
MicroTrac Completed
MicroTrac is the craziest power tool that I’ve seen. A powered unicycle? Mobile replacement wheel for LifeTrac, the open source tractor? Universal power source? It’s perhaps best to call it a walk-behind tractor. See the development from the...
OSE Interview with Gernot Minke
I think we have about 11 hours of video from the workshop in Kassel, Germany. Some are in English, some in German. On most the video itself is enough to understand what's going on. If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them.
Juicy Fruit
One peach tree planted two years ago is now dripping with fruit. Here is a quick walkthrough at Factor e Farm on July 1, 2009 with this and some other details of natural history. The land changes drastically here on 2 week time scales. Now the dry season...
Power Cube – Prototype I Complete
Power Cube is our open source, self-contained, modular, interchangeable, hydraulic power unit for all kinds of power equipment. It has an 18 hp gasoline engine coupled to a hydraulic pump, and it will later be be powered by a flexible-fuel modern steam...
