Hey all this is Stuart, and I was at the farm for a couple weeks back in August. I figured I should drop the blog a line on my experience at the farm as well as try to rally some support for the cause. I wish I could have got this out sooner, but better late than never.

I discovered the site while searching for plans for a C.E.B. press. After talking with Marcin a few times online, I decided to book a ticket and go check out what was going on at the farm. Read the rest of this entry »

We are setting up our 15 kWhr battery bank and solar panels - so we’ll be off off-grid for the next few days as we set up the system.  The new system is sufficient to power all of our facility except for the welder. You may not hear from us for a few days, but when we emerge, we shall have exciting CEB footage in our next Factor e Live.

We started our first crowd funding cycle one week ago - for October. We collected $1254 to date - not bad. The goals are  - and our timeline for October is  - . We’re moving along. The Babington burner is flaring, , Bob is here, , and the Hexayurt is up. One Hexayurt is enough for now - unless we get more people. We’re looking for volunteers, and if our funding goals succeed, we will provide a $400 stipend. Let us know if you’d like to come here. Sasha wrote an excellent post on our work as well. Please spread the word on finding people. Remember that we are supported entirely by volunteer efforts.

It’s exciting and difficult work. Decision forks and dangers abound. We are up on our feet, and feel like we’re making history. We could taste the sweet flavor of progress for the common good - with the global community behind us. I wish I could communicate the feeling of historic events unfolding - starting to tap the potential of a globally-linked co-laboratory. Only a modicum of directed energy - integrated in a well-organized form - can change the world. Please contribute - we are collecting until the end of this month for the October cycle.

Building on the work in the last post - if one simply puts a shroud around the Babington burner flame to retain the heat - the flame becomes self sustaining. Preheated to 140 F, the oil lights immediately and continues to burn:

It’s getting cold here - 40 F last night. We’re scrambling to press bricks, and hopefully we will have warm space soon with the Babington/wood CEB masonry stove.

The spirits run high as Bob’s Bab Lab produces a roaring Babington burner flame at Factor e Farm:

Any details on winding techniques for continuous steel tubing are welcome. We are considering a 100 foot coil of 1/2″ or 3/4″ heat exchange coil - which we are trying to wind in a 6 inch spiral. Also, details on a possible masonry stove design are welcome.

Today we started to put together our Babington burner. This burner is important because it is a versatile source of heat for: space heating, metal melting, glassworks, pottery, steam engines for remote power, heat engines for mobile power in cars and tractors, and many others. We can use it with any waste oil - crankcase, vegetable, etc. - plus pyrolysis oil from biomass once we develop it. It is not a far stretch to produce pyrolysis oil- see this simple experimental proposition. Do you think this would yield useful amounts of liquid fuel?

For the Babington burner, we drilled a 0.0135 inch hole in the face of a hollow, brass doorknob - and brazed on a fitting that supplied compressed air at a constant pressure between 20-35 psi. We were able to atomize water but when we tried motor oil we had problems. We were able to produce a bit of a flame but never sustained burning. Two possibilities: 1) the hole became clogged from debris inside the burner ball, 2) the oil was not heated sufficiently. Has anyone had success in sustaining a flame over a long period? What is a good method for automatic ignition? Best way to regulate the flow over the ball? Any feedback is welcome from experienced Babsmen.

Hexayurt building went well - a 7/16″ Oriented Strand Board (OSB) structure with 4 inch wide, 32 gage galvanized flashing as the ‘tape’ to hold it together. Being familiar with standard construction methods, I had my doubts concerning the structural integrity of a tension srtucture. I have been converted after this project.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ecology and technology. The tractor is borne of plants and rock - transformed to rubber and steel.

It’s munching up the soil - with the tiller. It is site preparation for the first Hexayurt - in minutes as opposed to 2 days with 3 people with heavy hoe by hand. We are on schedule as shown at:

. The crowd funding already paid for materials. Bob is here. The site is prepared. Tomorrow you’ll see pictures of the Hexayurt - temporary shelter for Bob and others as we get going with CEB construction.

The tractor is going through shakedown - hydraulic pressure adjustments, electrical switch upgrade for turning the tractor on, a 1100 pound weight on the back.

We are still looking for at least 2 more people - do you have any suggestions? We aim to be in production of the CEB presses themselves in 6 months - with 4 per week capacity. We won’t need the crowd funding as much then - once we’re producing. In the meantime, donate to accelerate that progress. It’s the critical startup stage.

This crowd funding is like a virtual reality game - except we are your real-life players - with product and video footage to show it.

We finally kicked off our crowdsource funding yesterday - or online donations. You can chip in to our project here.

We are migrating towards full direct support by such small online donations. The bottom line is - with the collected resources, we plan on delivering:

This is within the context of our 6 month technology tree development as in the last post. We have learned that progress goes only as fast as how many collaborators we find. For example, when Bob and Stewart were here- we were able to get major progress done on LifeTrac, plus intstall a biodiesel reactor. In reference to the above timeline, here is all that we’ll be able to do without your support:

As such, we invite you to contribute. The basic goal is to get people here, build a CEB workshop and living environment, and develop the CEB press to a marketable, open source product - including an open business model for community-supported manufacturing. We aim to have product in six months by March - after going through a second and third prototype of the CEB press, documenting the fabrication procedure clearly, and optimizing fabrication. We aim to develop a production capacity of 4 CEB presses per week - in a digital fabrication scenario.

All this is supposed to happen from contributions to our funding basket, on a monthly basis, starting for the month of October. So pump your wallet and contribute, so that we reach the point of earnings from actual CEB production as soon as possible. We already have orders, so we just need to deliver. There’s tranformative potential in developing a self-sustaining model for a peer-based open engineering and development program. We’re shooting for that as a prerequisite to a world-class open product development facility.

If you are interested in coming here for the CEB building phase of our work - we’re looking for people. We have two people coming, we need at least two more. The budget contains a small stipend for participants. Contact us for details.

Here is the continuing saga with the open source tractor. We built a quick attach plate for rapid interchanging of implements. We built an open source rototiller as the first such implement. Now we can switch readily between the tiller and loader bucket - as needed for CEB construction.

We also show how we put together our biodiesel reactor. We document further solar panel fabrication and testing, and other fruits of Factor e Farm.

The next step is an enhanced program of core technology tree development and crowdsource research. In the next 6 months, we hope to have the following infrastructure technologies designed, built, and deployed:

This is not a small task. To get there, the immediate plan is:

• Get people here - 4 others in total, plus Brittany and I. We will house the team in 7/16 inch, painted, oriented strand board (OSB) Hexayurts - temporary for the next month as CEB housing comes into place.
• We work on housing and central heating as the prime objectives. Uninsulated Hexayurts are good only for about another month - until winter comes. Thus, we’ll dedicate one person of the team to work full time on central heating. Two options are a CEB brick stove - and Babington-burner flamethrower with heat exchange coil, running on waste waste vegetable oil - waste oil of insufficient quality for biodiesel production.
• This is not happening without some crowdsource contributions. We’re setting up a crowdsource funding basket for this phase
  • The budget is $7.18 per sheet of OSB, times 18 pieces, or $130 in materials, plus flashing to make the joints (tape is not strong enough), for a total of about $150 each - times 3 temporary buildings like this, or a grand total of $450:
  • $400 stipend per month for new recruits, times 4
  • $1100 in cement, gravel, insulation, doors, and other building materials for CEB construction
    • $3150 total for the next month

  Chip in at our wiki. The main program is getting people here and building. The background work is crowdsource research to get the technology tree above growing - mainly the biofuel, fab, steam engine, and solar turbine integration. More on this later.