Don Jackson

Don Jackson <homesteadpower@hotmail.com> to joseph.dolittle@gmail.com date Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:05 AM subject help on your project mailed-by hotmail.com

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Hi;

I've been reading with interest about the compressed earth press, and your open-source farm.

I've been working independently, as much as one person can, in similar directions. I have my own property in Oregon where I have thought of creating a similar project.

Where is your farm? Your web information is not doing a good job of stating this, even though you're looking for participants, and location is a very important factor!

One thing I have been doing is using common 3-phase motors as generators, instead, and using them to charge battery banks. You may be very familiar with this, or you may not, I'll attach a schematic and a picture of how this can be attached to a waterwheel.

My visions are slig htly different than yours i.e. I am worried that your CEB pressed blocks will not be insulative enough in a northern climate, so I have purchased a used cardboard baling machine instead, and I'm experimenting with compressed bales of different substances. I have an excellent clay/sand mix here for earth plaster that I excavate from a pond, it can be used as-is with no additives, the clay is very rich (about 50%, and a non-cracking type).

Also, I have an 8000# tractor, and I am trying to do all heavy work with it. I want good size blocks that can be moved into place with the tractor, and each one makes a substantial chunk of wall (3' x 4', 2' thick), I suspect a farmers bale-squeeze attachment will be most useful for moving these, and also a pile driver to drive 3/8" fiberglass rebar rods down through the bales, to pin them together. A very handy feature of my tractor is it has the same front end as Bobcat skid-steer machines, this is exceedingly useful because hundreds of different attachments are sold for these, and with the quick-tach front end, changing attachments litterally only takes a minute. - I highly recommend you incorporate this into your designs, if you end up with enough front-end capability to handle these kinds of buckets.

In anticipation of the collapse of our society, I have purchased two very large d.c. motors, and battery banks to run them. These motors run on 240 - 300 volts d.c., one is 50 horse, the other 125 horse. This voltage looks useful because it can be charged off the grid very easily, 240 volts becomes 300 volts d.c. after rectification. Really heavy loads that require continuous use could be backed up with any diesel generator, running at optimum speed continuously for optimum efficiency, but the units could still be recharged at night from grid electricity (or electricity you make yourself using 3-phase motors and wind, water, etc.).

I've gone through several local fabricators working on these ideas, I don't pay enough to keep them interested apparently and I'm too visionary ("crazy")! But I keep on going anyway.

Well, that's enough for now, I wish you the best!

Don in Oregon