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Open Source Tractor

opensourceecology.dozuki.com

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Re: Open Source Tractor

#101

Post by lazide »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #92
beckman466 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the west is literally trying to provoke a huge war with china because china is no longer dependent on the west's intellectual property. your framing seems ignorant to me. Vijay Prashad: What's the Left to Do in a World on Fire? | China and the Left , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd8w3ONjv6Y Vijay Prashad: No Cold War with China , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj1ggllXmws

I feel like tractors are like AK-47s, kinda de facto grandfathered in before Neo-liberalism and Globalization made exporting IP law a big part part of of geopolitics.

Basic tractors, like the AK-47, are also designable by most decent mechanical engineering students without a lot of work if they spent an afternoon googling first for prior art (and that prior art has long had any patents expire).

Which if there is an ecosystem related to this, that’s great as the manufacturing is where you need economies of scale pretty badly and everyone benefits from it.

There is no also no need for a basic excavator to cost $30k or more. Let’s do something about that too!

Re: Open Source Tractor

#102

Post by 5faulker »

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.

At the holistic level, their impact on the ecology is still to be known though.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#103

Post by voakbasda »

dbrgn wrote: post #56
nimbius wrote: post #7

i work on heavy equipment such as tractors, diesel trucks and excavators in the USA. this is an excellent start, but its a long way from a tractor. some of the pitfalls that need to be addressed: "Modular Power Unit" is undefined. can i run it on white gas? diesel? kerosene? what is the engine displacement? air cooled or liquid? If we mean to say this tractor is all-electric, keep in mind most small farms arent equip…

> If we mean to say this tractor is all-electric, keep in mind most small farms arent equipped to charge anything more advanced than a cordless drill or flashlight. Are you sure? In Switzerland, most farms I know have at least one dusty three-phase power outlet somewhere in a shed. Sometimes just 16A, but that should be sufficient for many use cases.

In the US, three phase power seems to be completely unavailable in rural areas, except in small pockets of industry.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#104

Post by jjmellon »

syedkarim wrote: post #22

Isn't this really a skid steer/wheel loader, rather than a tractor?

Yes it is. Even if it had a PTO, this vehicle won't do much agricultural field work, it will bog down. Tractors typically have much larger back wheels, usually weighted, and a larger engine.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#105

Post by AngryData »

hinkley wrote: post #49

I went looking for specialty equipment for moving logs a few years ago while researching a restoration project. That equipment is super expensive, so I went looking for a DIY solution, expecting to find something along the lines of the construction philosophy of the OST project. I know my way around a wrench and bolting something together is no problem for me. Especially if I can take it apart again to store it, sinc…

They should definitely look into welding, they will need it at some point anyways for repairs. And a stick welder is both cheap and perfect use case for welding heavy metal frames. It could even be powered off the engine to be used in the tractor.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#106

Post by ajuc »

namdnay wrote: post #85
beckman466 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

They do. Or, to be precise - they are daughter companies of global corporations that keep their marketshare thanks to IP.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#107

Post by freeopinion »

bshipp wrote: post #38
turminal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the makers of this machine believe this is a viable solution for farmers right now, but they realize that "buy it cheap from China" is becoming more and more of a problem in the long run and something that needs to be fixed. We'll have to give up on the "if it dies, just buy a new one, it's cheap anyway" philosophy sooner or later. I see this project more as an experiment on how to make a functional and…

As someone who has worked in agriculture their entire life, there is nothing cheap about farming equipment. Every year it gets more and more prohibitively expensive and experiences more and more vendor lock-in. While this solution appears fairly rudimentary, I think there's a real demand for more simplistic, compatible, and capable farm machinery when combines are a million a piece and tractors are a quarter that.

A 28hp tractor tamed the world once upon a time. Back when a family could work their hearts out on a 100 acre farm.

A single family with a 28hp tractor cannot farm 1000 acres effectively. It's hard to find 10 families each with a 28hp tractor willing to go all-in to farm 1000 acres. And if you could, they'd get wiped out by the conglomerate that uses a stable of million dollar combines to farm 20,000 acres.

A California farmer doesn't feed a Central Valley community. An Iowa farmer doesn't feed all their townfolks. Their target market is the entire globe. Pigs to China, soy to Japan, barley to Germany, corn to Tunisia.

That said, I think you are right that there is a market for capable, compatible tractors. And also a market for 28hp tractors. In the auto world, Volkswagen and Toyota each make 11 million cars a year and even Suzuki makes 3 million. But there is still a place for Tata to make 1 million cars per year to meet a specific demand. If you are content to meet a specific need, and not driven to be top 5 or bust... If you don't even need to be top 20... There is a place where you could stay in business.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#108

Post by beckman466 »

jcims wrote: post #93
beckman466 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the west is literally trying to provoke a huge war with china because china is no longer dependent on the west's intellectual property. your framing seems ignorant to me. Vijay Prashad: What's the Left to Do in a World on Fire? | China and the Left , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd8w3ONjv6Y Vijay Prashad: No Cold War with China , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj1ggllXmws

You’re making oblique references and (I guess?) assuming that some conclusion is obvious. A more direct statement of your point might help here.

> A more direct statement of your point might help here.

abolish Silicon Valley. [1]

[1] Wendy Liu, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

Re: Open Source Tractor

#109

Post by einpoklum »

voakbasda wrote: post #103
dbrgn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we mean to say this tractor is all-electric, keep in mind most small farms arent equipped to charge anything more advanced than a cordless drill or flashlight. Are you sure? In Switzerland, most farms I know have at least one dusty three-phase power outlet somewhere in a shed. Sometimes just 16A, but that should be sufficient for many use cases.

In the US, three phase power seems to be completely unavailable in rural areas, except in small pockets of industry.

So how do the power companies run electricity to those areas? They don't use DC, do they? Or do you mean individual houses are typically wired with just one of the phases?

Re: Open Source Tractor

#110

Post by namdnay »

ajuc wrote: post #106
namdnay wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They do. Or, to be precise - they are daughter companies of global corporations that keep their marketshare thanks to IP.

And that’s why there are no cheap Chinese cars or trucks or tractors or guns or engines or any of that stuff ..
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