A quick update on the CEB. Most of the automated hopper assembly is finished. I connected and tested the second cylinder for the hopper, and it moves nicely back and forth. I spent time yesterday, with the ice storm past, digging some soil for testing the CEB machine. I did this with the tractor front-end loader. It thawed out to the perfect point where the ground was still workable, while not thawed to the point that it was complete mud, which would make the tractor get stuck.
I collected a good pile of soil- enough for perhaps 1000 bricks. If I couldn’t get the soil yesterday, then it may have been impossible for the next 3 months, until spring. We decided to test the machine by pressing out 1000 bricks – which should take about 4 hours of work – once we get the hang of the routine. That will be with 2 people working – one loading soil and unloading bricks, and the other running the hydraulic controls. More news and pictures soon. I hope to do the testing by the end of this week.
Hear, hear!
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?OpenSourceTractor
Hey, there was a burner among your designs – could you use that to warm up the room and make bricks sooner, not having to wait until Spring?
nah , dont think so, too complicated its much easier to just wait the spring for this. You can always make things more complicated but its not easy to make things simpler 🙂
Simple = better or as a one friend of mine , a prophet of appropriate technology said KISS keep it simple stupid
Sasha