Thu 25 Sep 2008
Crowdsource Funding
Posted by Marcin
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.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I just donated! I could really benefit from xyz table, and possibly CEB press/workshop.
How much do you hope to raise to meet those goals above, anyway?
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The approximate budget is $3k per month – continuing into November and December – to meet the goals of delivering workshop space, sawmill (for onsite lumber production, thus decreasing our building costs further), XYZ table (we have the materials here), and second prototype of CEB press. The $3k is a bare bones figure that we can work on due to low overhead. If we succeed in raising this, we will continue fundraising to accelerate progress, and bring other projests from the 6 month technology tree up on the timeline. This is really about working as fast as resources allow. We have sufficient background work done that the projects are simply lined up in front of us – so any new people and resources that we can attract will allow us to get the prototypes done and pushed up in schedule. This work is really about people collaborating – it takes a village to build a village. – Marcin
September 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
A rushed entry at my blog. Looking forward to donating tomorrow or Monday. Thanks for your reports and great work!
September 25th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I just donated $5, the best I could do since I’m on Soc. Sec, but I’m really fascinated by your life-trac and the CEB unit. I’d really like to build a life-trac, I’ve got a 2.2 L Nissan diesel I could put on it. What do you estimate the cost at minus the power unit? I also would really love to have a CEB press, but I’m not much of a welder.
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Harmon, thanks a lot – you’re putting your money where your mouth is. Outside of engine – the parts costs are frame (I used 4x4x1/4″ steel tubing, $1000). Then there is at least $1250 in the hydraulic system – 4 wheel motors at $250 each, plus pump at $250. Balance of hydraulics – valves, hoses, safety valves – are another $500. Then you go from there for additional pieces – PTO motor ($280), hydraulic cylinders – $90 each. I’m talking about Surpluscenter, Nebraska prices. I’ll put up a detailed materials budget on the LifeTrac page – I need to do that still – http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=LifeTrac
The project is about $4k for base unit. To obtain functionality of other varied attachments, costing $160k when I counted all off-shelf counterparts – it’s another $8k. We are talking materials only.
On the CEB, the welding is minimal – indeed, the next prototype will eliminate just about all welding. This welding can be outsourced for about $200 if you have a shop do it for you at $50/hour.