They've been mentioned before. They've been at this since at least 2012, and they've only built a few prototype machines. Productivity seems low.
The whole set of machines looks like something China's ministry of agriculture would have come up with around 1980 or so. There are some standard items widely used in rural China and India, manufactured by many manufacturers. Here's a small Diesel engine.[1] This thing is brutally simple - one cylinder, non-recirculating water cooled (you have to add water when you add fuel), hand crank start, no emission controls. Costs about US$300. There's someone who has a YouTube channel of fixing discarded engines of this type. There seem to be a lot of them lying around, all very similar but from different manufacturers. It's the AK-47 of Diesel engines - it's crude, it Just Works, and it can be fixed. It's mass-produced, because making metal parts in quantity is very efficient, while one-offs are too labor intensive.
Here's a basic tractor, the Wuzheng TS, costing around $6,000. "Mature technology", the maker says. There are hundreds of thousands of those things in the Third World.
That's how this gets done in the real world. Mass produced machines of similar design that's proved itself. That's how the US did it, back when the Fordson tractor [3] was popular. Ford produced low-end tractors until 1964.
You can still buy low-end farm equipment cheaply. It's not cost effective for a commercial farm, but it's still available. Sometimes it's all you need.
Exactly. Why try to make something open source community stuff when we can just order cheap stuff from China. China is wonderful. China has solved the problem for us. We can rely on China.
Those same Diesel engines are available from India and several other countries.
Again, it's like the AK-47. Somebody really good got the design right, and now others can just replicate it.
Diesel engine design is non-trivial. It takes a lot of compression to get the heat necessary for ignition. It takes strong structures to handle that pressure. The fuel injector has to be able to overcome the pressure of compression and spray fuel into the cylinder. You need to get more energy out than you spend on compression and injection.
The thermodynamics are complicated. That all gets built into the dimensions of the metal parts, and it all looks simple, but it's not. Those little engines doesn't even need a glow plug to get started. Or even much cranking. They just work. Cheaply.
> Somebody really good got the design right, and now others can just replicate it.
For what it's worth, the AK-47 design is not "right", it's "good enough" and cheap. Some of the other militaries that copied the basic shape to share the ammunition significantly improved the design. For example, https://www.firearmsnews.com/editorial/best-ak47-rifle/39474...
> Exactly. Why try to make something open source community stuff when we can just order cheap stuff from China.
It's rare to see common sense on Hacker News.
1.4 billion people who get things done verse fat nerds in basements talking stuff and can't even get their theory right. Open sourcing an X they have never actually used.
What is of interest is why China and not Africa or India or Brazil (BRICS+) so much, this is where the discussion is at.
Perhaps, could the fat nerds work with China and do things? This is controversial, NEETs can't even do advanced high school math anymore. They have given up.
Likewise I've seen compact farm equipment, in the same size/weight category as ride-on mowers and handheld cultivators, a bit like the "microcombine" they are advertising - which they don't have a real life link of. See e.g. [0]
I wonder what the purpose of this website is. I suppose if someone wants to start a community or a larger homestead they could use a starter pack, a complete set of all or part of this equipment in a handy storage solution, like a standard container. Wild guess, but I bet you can get a homestead starter kit like that (minus house / building materials) for $100K. (and you probably wouldn't need an aluminium extruder)
Seems like a neat thought experiment taken to (some stage of) implementation. Like OLPC. Solving problems we think people might have, while missing the more important issues (whatever they may be; I certainly don’t know myself). Idea is nice but feels “too cute”.
I like that it focuses on repairability. Seems like these might be fun to experiment with. Or as a kit for a “homestead” in remote Alaskan wilderness, where you’d like to be able to repair yourself without having to deal with long travel time and expensive shipping.
The whole set of machines looks like something China's ministry of agriculture would have come up with around 1980 or so. There are some standard items widely used in rural China and India, manufactured by many manufacturers. Here's a small Diesel engine.[1] This thing is brutally simple - one cylinder, non-recirculating water cooled (you have to add water when you add fuel), hand crank start, no emission controls. Costs about US$300. There's someone who has a YouTube channel of fixing discarded engines of this type. There seem to be a lot of them lying around, all very similar but from different manufacturers. It's the AK-47 of Diesel engines - it's crude, it Just Works, and it can be fixed. It's mass-produced, because making metal parts in quantity is very efficient, while one-offs are too labor intensive.
Here's a basic tractor, the Wuzheng TS, costing around $6,000. "Mature technology", the maker says. There are hundreds of thousands of those things in the Third World.
That's how this gets done in the real world. Mass produced machines of similar design that's proved itself. That's how the US did it, back when the Fordson tractor [3] was popular. Ford produced low-end tractors until 1964.
You can still buy low-end farm equipment cheaply. It's not cost effective for a commercial farm, but it's still available. Sometimes it's all you need.
[1] https://toppower.en.made-in-china.com/product/kmtRnxhrTvpB/C...
[2] https://chinawuzheng.en.made-in-china.com/product/ovGERBPVaa...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordson