Open Source Tractor • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Source Tractor

#181

Post by bmn__ » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #179

WhisperingShiba wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather live in China, than the USA? Not attacking, I am genuinely curious about what you think. From the outside looking in, it seems like people are overworked, overcrowded and rather unequal. Also they have a lot of pollution in many areas.

I would still rather live in the US, as an American, but I don't think this is how to think about the original statement. It's all relative, right? In absolute terms you can say they're overworked and overcrowded, but they can still be happier than us because they reference their past experience and they see the progress the country has made. We see a lot of dissatisfaction in the US today, despite having higher QoL…

> Chinese faith in their government

This does not really exist. Explanation:

Corruption in its forms – bribes, nepotism, scams perpetrated by officials, selective law enforcement, exploitation of socialised resources and capital for personal gain by officials, arbitrate rule changes without prior notice – are experienced by the populace on a daily basis from their local-level government. It creates magnitudes stronger problems than theatrics and gridlock. There is no one who is content with the work and quality of the local-level government. The people can only bitch in private because they know that public petitions are ignored and protests/demonstrations/riots are swiftly cracked down.

The effects of the high-level government OTOH usually cannot be seen or felt directly. A constructed image of the effects is disseminated by the propaganda arm of the party through newspapers, tv and radio, internet. People do like these success stories, but they are not accurate w.r.t. reality.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#182

Post by kumarvvr » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

I hope to see a day when the essentials of human survival and living well are completely open sourced, and companies compete on producing the products from open sourced designs and processess.

Perhaps that will bring in the elusive utopia.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#183

Post by kortex » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

throwaway9870 wrote: post #144

freeopinion wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Califor…

The problem is that this solution isn't even close to being realistic. 28HP engines are not created equal and this engine isn't anything like the old 28HP engines from tractors of yesteryear. The tires are wrong, hydraulic drive is wrong, no PTO yet, etc. Bolting tube together on a moving machine like this, WTF. The tube works free over time as it collapses which will cause play and egging of the holes. This is compl…

100% this. Early 20th century tractors are pretty damn simple. A big torquey engine bolted to a sturdy I-beam based ladder chassis, two big ass drive tires, two thin tires for steering.

I think they have designed a neat utility vehicle, forklift and loader, but it's not a tractor.

However, Marcin says they rigorously test all the equipment on an actual farm, and are quite familiar with tractor maintenance, so I don't think he's that far off base.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#184

Post by Ericson2314 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

lazide wrote: post #174

Ericson2314 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I really want open source to meet the "real world", and not be stuck as another "socialism for the rich" where companies can do things on the cheap but the software is useless to the average person as an alternative to anything. (Great example: Google using Linux in Android does not mean the user is any more free of advertizing and spying!) But unless I misunderstand what this is for, I think the economies of s…

I think you’re right, and doing some more digging this seems if anything a somewhat useless engineer-wouldn’t-it-be-cool type project that isn’t solving any of the real problems that people face. Sigh.

On the more positive side, maybe some things in here are necessary first steps, and best get to more useful things later building upon them. I am not sure, I didn't dig to deep yet.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#185

Post by kortex » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

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…

I think you've nailed the reason they have gravitated towards bolted tube frame design, despite the quite glaring mechanical downsides to that style of assembly. They are driving down the number of custom operations and shrinking the BOM as much as possible. Bolting on more struts is preferable to welding custom angle brackets (which would be more skookum) when that's yet another part you have to jig and fabricate yourself.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#186

Post by kortex » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #143

IMHO "open source" is not the right term for this because, besides sounding like it was created by people with a software-centric view, it legitimises the application of Imaginary Property laws to physical objects --- something that is a relatively recent phenomenon and one that I think should not continue. Perhaps "open design" or similar would be more representative of the intent. For example, the automotive afterm…

It's not just that, it's a deliberate dig against the current trend of farm equipment mired in opaque binaries, DRM, and OEM sensors, that require an OEM service tech to fix. Not for any mechanical reason, but because they restrict the diagnostic software.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#187

Post by kortex » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

ris wrote: post #76

The Open Source Ecology designs have always struck me as a great way of losing a limb.

I mean, that's industrial/ag equipment in general. The guards and warning labels tend to come later, after many, many injuries.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#188

Post by throwawaylinux » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #27

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…

"Modular Power Unit" is a 28hp Briggs and Stratton Professional gas unit, per https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Structural_Power_Cub... . Overall, this site https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page is much better than the linked one for overall information about this initiative, for example https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Power_Cube_Design_Ra... .

Oh god that's so rough, it looks like they're (very poorly) using an angle grinder free-hand and an oxy torch to cut out their plates.

They'd probably find the tooling and jigs they need to do the job properly would be much cheaper and easier if they didn't go way overkill. This little engine does not require a huge 1/2" thick steel plate to mount it on.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#189

Post by mjfl » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

I remember being introduced to opensourceecology 10 years ago. At first I was very enthusiastic. However, it seems to have had a rocky trajectory, with many people coming, then leaving, and progress being very slow. And some critical thinking skills being missing in my opinion. For instance, instead of making a tractor from scratch, why not reverse engineer an existing tractor design, with all it's optimizations, and then re-optimize it for open source, repairability? Seems like nothing significant has happened on this project for the past 10 years.

Edit: this article itself is from 2013.

Re: Open Source Tractor

#190

Post by f7ebc20c97 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 3:31 AM UTC

gnramires wrote: post #133

beckman466 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I need to watch that! I'm developing an algorithmically-driven civilization architecture concept. (in the sense of, how to organize society from a blank slate point of view, while maximizing the wealth of experience for all individuals? I think we've gotten a little caught up in ideology and culture wars and stopped looking for ideas to move society forward with more efficient, humane, robust, collaborative (or adver…

You're in luck! We're in the midst of a transition to a brand-new architecture. You're going to love social credit.

Expert social engineers (sociologists, psychologists, economists, environmental scientists, et. al.) will be chosen to define "well being" using the latest scientific research and data. Money won't exist. You'll have a social credit score from 0 to 1000 depending on your overall value to society, the economy, and the environment. Higher scores will qualify you for better food, housing, and transportation. Lower scores will subject you to various restrictions or even imprisonment. Purchases will deduct different amounts from your score depending on their true overall societal cost; prices will include all economic externalities as determined by the experts.

Since the score asymptotically caps out at 1000, all economic inequality problems will be solved. In addition, there won't be the bureaucratic corporate management overhead of the current institutional patchwork because an expert-tuned AI management system will give you instructions on what work you need to do to help your score (including diet and exercise), using your mobile device or neuralink.

Luckily, there won't even have to be a violent revolution to reach this utopia, because just about every world leader at the UN, WEF, IMF, BIS, major political parties, large corporations, and so on are ALL on board with this.