Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open Source Tractor

opensourceecology.dozuki.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 213 posts

Re: Open Source Tractor

#81

Post by beckman466 »

rmason wrote: post #51

This project is terrific. People are critical of what it doesn't do, I'm in awe of what it does do. You're going to have little two man shops in Africa and Asia cranking these out and changing agriculture in their part of the world. This demonstrates the power of open source. These engineers are to be commended.

> This demonstrates the power of open source. These engineers are to be commended.

if you haven't seen the famous Open Source Ecology pitch by Marcin Jakubowski, you're in for a treat!

Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | Marcin Jakubowski, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEMkvT0DEk

Re: Open Source Tractor

#82

Post by JohnWhigham »

indrax wrote: post #14
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #5

I wonder why the frame is made out of bolted beams with holes in them, are bolts and holed beams easy to find or something? I mean I can imagine that if you have the tools to build those, you'd have a welder as well. Granted, welding might be a bit more challenging than cutting beams and drilling holes.

It's conceptually gridbeam. https://gridbeam.xyz/ General construction kit for real world applications. In theory you could take a machine apart and use the beams for some other machine. A smaller kit could build any of the machine designs as needed.

This is very cool. Shame to see the original website is down though.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#83

Post by timschmidt »

puzzledobserver wrote: post #53
nannal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are modern blueprints, PDF? Sounds like a fairly simple project.

Maybe CAD models for 3D printers? Something like Thingiverse, at the very least. I'd imagine you also need repositories of processes and assembly instructions.

All the designs we're drawing for https://wiki.replimat.org/wiki/Main_Page are done using our branch of https://github.com/nophead/NopSCADlib which contains some work yet to be upstreamed here: https://github.com/timschmidt/replimat

Re: Open Source Tractor

#84

Post by beckman466 »

namdnay wrote: post #79
rmason wrote: post #51

This project is terrific. People are critical of what it doesn't do, I'm in awe of what it does do. You're going to have little two man shops in Africa and Asia cranking these out and changing agriculture in their part of the world. This demonstrates the power of open source. These engineers are to be commended.

I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty. I’m sure there are factories in Asia pumping out cheap tractors already

> I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty.

what's your logic here? the intellectual property system is the way the global north propertied class dominates the global south; i.e. renting out the commoditized blueprints/designs and charging insane royalties [1]

[1] Vijay Prashad, https://mronline.org/2019/09/29/iphone-workers-today-are-25-...

Re: Open Source Tractor

#85

Post by namdnay »

beckman466 wrote: post #84
namdnay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty. I’m sure there are factories in Asia pumping out cheap tractors already

> I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty. what's your logic here? the intellectual property system is the way the global north propertied class dominates the global south; i.e. renting out the commoditized blueprints/designs and charging insane royalties [1] [1] Vijay Prashad, https://mronline.org/2019/09/29/iphone-workers-today-are-25-...

Do you think cheap tractor makers in china or India give a fig about IP?

Re: Open Source Tractor

#86

Post by hinkley »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #63
hinkley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocks and branches are a once-in-a-while problem. Dust is an everyday use problem, and in an era where everything is doused in pesticides and herbicides I don't think it's optional.

Not sure, but we definitely made extensive use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers when I was growing up. Of course, to your point, that doesn’t mean that kind of exposure is safe .

Did your parents teach you to only spray on the upwind passes, or were you huffing *cides half the time?

Re: Open Source Tractor

#87

Post by throwaway210222 »

beckman466 wrote: post #84
namdnay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty. I’m sure there are factories in Asia pumping out cheap tractors already

> I doubt that IP of tractor designs is a major factor in third world poverty. what's your logic here? the intellectual property system is the way the global north propertied class dominates the global south; i.e. renting out the commoditized blueprints/designs and charging insane royalties [1] [1] Vijay Prashad, https://mronline.org/2019/09/29/iphone-workers-today-are-25-...

Can you be specific?

E.g. precisely what patent, design patent, trademark, or copyright is stopping the entire of Africa from designing and building an indigenous diesel tractor?

Re: Open Source Tractor

#88

Post by Wesxdz »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #5

I wonder why the frame is made out of bolted beams with holes in them, are bolts and holed beams easy to find or something? I mean I can imagine that if you have the tools to build those, you'd have a welder as well. Granted, welding might be a bit more challenging than cutting beams and drilling holes.

https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Modular_Construction

Re: Open Source Tractor

#89

Post by hinkley »

MayeulC wrote: post #71
hinkley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocks and branches are a once-in-a-while problem. Dust is an everyday use problem, and in an era where everything is doused in pesticides and herbicides I don't think it's optional.

I don't know; my neighbors are farmers and their tractors don't have cabins. I'm not saying it's healthy, just that different people place different emphasis on different features. Having occasionally used a (cabin-less) tractor without power steering for years, I'd pick that over a cabin for instance. Dust and pesticides can be worked around with masks, goggles or scarves when occasionally found around. A straw hat…

I don't think I'm claiming that the open tractor HAS to have a cabin. It should be an option, though. Possibly one with some positive peer pressure around it.

A box doesn't fix everything. You still have to get air into it from somewhere and it's all gonna come from outside. But sitting in a dust cloud is a little different situation than getting some dust through a vent. Especially if you're sweating like a pig the whole time.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#90

Post by jcims »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #62
efitz wrote: post #50

Patents expire after 20 years or so. Why not just take a 25 year old tractor, 3d model it, make your small improvements and updates, and then start working on value adds like parts pipelines, data & gps driven agriculture, etc

Modeling a tractor in CAD isn't the issue. Manufacturing it is. A 25 year old tractor design (probably out to 75+ year old tractors even) still has hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure and tooling behind it. Molds or dies for a single part can easily reach into 6 figures, without taking into account the $10 million injection molding machine. The simplifications you could do would be limited, as every des…

An open source foundry might be an interesting project.
Post reply on HN