Comment by delbel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by delbel | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know of any groups or hacker like groups working on these types of problems? I own a small farm and for the life of me I cant find workers even at $25/hr. I have so far bought several tractors and implements and I am planning to semi-automate as much as possible. But that is not ready this year and I am basically by myself with a shovel... I would like to fully automate as much as possible, and I have zero skills in this area. To increase my chance of success I have bought several machines, such as 3d printers, a lathe, a milling machine, plasma cutter, welders (MIG and arc), and other tools, and I am building a shop right now. I have also worked with Ardunio, raspberry pi, ... basically I am going all out and want to go all the way to success. There are several machines I would like to build that I would like powered by the tractor´s PTO and hydraulic. The most important machine would be a planter that would plant solo-cup sized plant starts, and lay down drip irrigation. If I can build or buy that, that would save a lot of my time.

Wow, that is an epic start! IMO, the best thing you could do, is to meticulously document your projects, for a blog / vlog. The shop build would be a great first project to kick off a Youtube channel, for example. This should put you in contact with others who have similar technical-farming projects. Lots of hacker types in the aquaponics field, as well.

If this was happening anywhere near me, I would be all over it. I am in the complementary situation; I have a ton of ideas about how I want to build up an experimental farm/nursery/farm-tech incubator, but inadequate space and funding. Hope we see your work here in the future.

I work for a Systems Integration firm, and while we haven't automated a farm, we work a lot in Automation. If you're interested, you can check us out at CorsoSystems.com we do some pretty cool work and we do a lot of tinkerings with Raspberry Pi's and more. We do a ton of backend work with building databases and getting the information in and out of them, connecting everything. Guessing you'd need hell with that at some point.

On a side note, I feel your pain, my wife grew up in a farming community (kids were late to school because the cows got out) and there is food rotting in the fields because the migrant workers haven't been there en mass the last couple of years. With the INS crackdowns, it's only gotten worse. We love farm stands and join CSA's when we can find them, you guys are great. Keep fighting the good fight!

I can't magic you up any workers but here's a hint:

You'd be astonished at how quickly and accurately a large air compressor with a small amount of water added to the flow can dig a shallow trench or small hole.

I actually have a backhoe, but the diesel injector pump is broken. Its a rosa master rotary injection pump. They go for $800 on ebay rebuilt. Project for the winter in my new shop. Thanks for your advice on the water injector. Do you have any design for injecting the water into the air line? How much water like in GPM or CFS per PSI?

I spent a summer as "that guy who digs with the compressor" on a maintenance crew at a summer camp.

I discovered it when I accidebtly blew a hole in an asphalt parking lot trying to use the compressor to clear sand.

Compressor was a little 50hp Rand diesel tow behind. 120psi 180cfm. In soft soil no water is even needed. A little water (like 2-5 gpm makes everything nicer). I started by making a little brass siphon fitting and then upped it to a garden hose fitting by the end.

Layed miles of sprinkler pipes with it. Always figured it would make a fantastic automatic digger for something or other.

Well you might be on to something. An air compressor with a venturi device, which is a simple device. I have a few for gold dredging and another one a fertilizer mixer. One could be made fairly easy with a pipe bender, welder, and fittings could be made on a lathe. However, a 50 HP air compressor is huge. I don't know much about air compressors besides my pancake compressor (barely runs my CUT50 plasma cutter), but 50 HP is tremendous. A lathe I am looking at to buy runs on 30 amps 220, and its only 5hp. 50 HP would be 50 *750 37,500 or 37kw.. or 170 amps at 220v if my math is correct! However, one of my tractor has 19 HP PTO at 540 rpm (Ford 2N) and another tractor of mine (Ford 4000) has a 50 HP PTO that could power a air compressor that size. So yeah that could be powered by one of my tractors and fit on a 3 point hitch. I like your idea and will look for a large air compressor motor somewhere to see if I can retro fit it to a PTO and build a venturi to try your idea out.

The one I used was a little diesel powered thing that the camp bought for $1900 (used) to run a jack-hammer. (Ended up cheaper than renting) then it just sat around until I had the bright idea of blowing off the parking lots with it.

It looked like a tiny little trailer that you pulled behind a jeep or something. It ran all day on a few gallons of diesel.

e.g. trenching on a hillside using compressed air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8nbEJxXD8

Wow. Just goes to show: No matter how novel you think your great idea is, someone else has probably though of it too.

> I cant find workers even at $25/hr?

How is that possible? What part of the country are you in?

Is it that everyone willing to do the work lacks the necessary skills? Or just that no one is willing?

You can probably go to your local FedEx hub and find a bunch of guys who load trucks for less than $15/hr.

This paper pot planter is pretty cool https://www.highmowingseeds.com/blog/paper-pot-transplanter/

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