Ecotech Infrastructure
We are planning some serious infrastructure building this year. Our technology goals for 2008 are: We are optimizing our hydraulic Compressed Earth Block press prototype , and building a swing-blade sawmill . We need good equipment so we can begin building....
CEB Collaboration
One of the goals of our CEB development is to neo-commercialize it: provide an open source business model for producing the machines, where all enabling information is in the public domain. No strings attached. To do this, we’ll be performing thorough...
Turbine Update
Our team is working with Dan Granett on the boundary layer turbine (see former blog entry). This will be a profound improvement over the Lister for electrical generation. It will be fired by a Babington burner with a flash steam generator. Here are simplified...
CEB Press Prototype 1 Completed
It is interesting to see the progress on the Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press from prior art: to our own conceptual and design drawings: to raw metal as shown at https://www.opensourceecology.org/?p=36 and to reality: Now we take a mound...
CEB Day 35
A quick update on the CEB. Most of the automated hopper assembly is finished. I connected and tested the second cylinder for the hopper, and it moves nicely back and forth. I spent time yesterday, with the ice storm past, digging some soil for testing...
CEB Day 27
This past week we put on the roof for the cordwood building addition: Yesterday I returned to the CEB. On November 26, we produced the first brick. I got right back into it – beginning work on the automated hopper assembly – which will allow...
Jeff’s Experience and Other Visits
Jeff Budderer of One Village Foundation and Andrius Kulikauskas of Minciu Sodas Laboratory visited us at Factor E Farm a few days ago. Here is Jeff’s writing on his experience: http://blog.onevillage.tv/wp/?p=491 Jeff’s comments prior to the...
Ups and Downs and the Plan
For all of you who are interested in building global villages in the future – here are some lessons from our experience. This applies to the case where you start with raw, undeveloped land. To begin with, the upshot is that we have just succeeded...
Brick is Born
It was thirty days before Christmas, two thousand and seven. The first compressed earth brick was born from an open source compressed earth block press. It was smooth, it was sleek. Six inches by twelve and four. Wouldn’t give it away for twice...
CEB Day 20 – Winter Migration
On the Compressed Earth Block press, I am looking to press the first brick today. The mounted pressing cylinder looks like this: It got into the 20s on the Fahrenheit scale, so I moved development operations into the greenhouse. We have a good stove in...
