Hi all,
There are many good things happening across the African continent today, and here is another opportunity!

This website offers free plans for building tractors and farm equipment at home.

   8 times cheaper than traditional assembly line produced tractors and brickmakers and ovens and mills and all the other top 50 inventions for village life! (They are working on the top 50, stay tuned and/or help out!)
   Available both online or as a DVD!
DEFY the greedy multinational corporations trying to bankrupt Africa through expensive equipment!
   Has a forum — log in with your preferred open id code!
   No paying for unnecessary branding or middle men or marketers or transport of rare parts across vast distances
   Once you have built it you know how to repair it!
   When you can build all the bits you need locally, there's no ordering expensive stuff in from overseas.
   Parts are fairly interchangable.  That might make for some unusual looking stuff, but at least it works!
   Are we approaching some self-organizing system like this at the local level in Africa? Will governments allow it?

Check it out! Pass it on to farmers you know, villagers and people who might need help.  This is an Open Source opportunity. . .  not spam. . .  I'm genuinely a 'greenie activist' trying to help!

http://www.opensourceecology.org/

http://www.openfarmtech.org/wiki/Main_Page


Who can print out these plans and take them to a local friend who might need a cheap tractor on their farm? They say that it can be built at 1/8th the price.  Anyone?

Let the revolution begin!

This rings good, who are the promoters?

Not sure, you'd have to look at their website to see who their latest sponsors are. However, the plans they have there are 100% free so if you know anybody that wants to be free of buying expensive tractors  and workshop equipment that is 8 times more expensive than doing it yourself... then go for it! Let them know about this stuff. It can only help.

Ok, thank you for that, you can click modify to edit the website links. Have you use their tractors or have anybody who have done so?

No, but I have this friend at church who is considering a 'treechange' and wants to live closer to the land in a permaculture village. He's investigated all manner of things and is looking for friends to go with him. One of his potential permaculture mates has spent time on the opensourceecology farm with Marcin, the head of this particular branch of the open source hardware movement. (There are other organisations as well, but his was the first to get a good TED talk!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsHKrP-66s

I ask these to enable people make inform decission, by knowing if the're hidding fees or surprise that might come in the process.

A helpful idea warranting Africa's progress if implemented across the continent. Thanks for sharing this.

Quote from: Webmaster on 2012-06-23 14:39
I ask these to enable people make inform decission, by knowing if the're hidding fees or surprise that might come in the process.

I think this is very important Webmaster. A high level of transparency is needed in projects such as this.

That is very correct Dqueen. This is a welcome development if implimentated with sense of contribution and long term initiatives.

Quote from: Webmaster on 2012-06-23 14:39
I ask these to enable people make inform decission, by knowing if the're hidding fees or surprise that might come in the process.

As far as I know the plans are free but the materials and components used to make these items will have to be salvaged locally or bought off the internet from the cheapest supplier you can find. Otherwise it is FREE FREE FREE! Just like Free Open Source Software like GIMP or Linux or Open Office. FREE!

Yes, those plans are free! Its no fraud, I now know a lot of people involved in this open source hardware development.

But, there are a lot of "buts" around...
Most projects aren't finished yet; and those finished are pretty low quality. No farmer will be happy with such a Lifetrac - poor design, lowest standard manufacturing quality.

Be warned, I'm an engineer and I know for sure that You will need a well equipped machine shop to build a quality tractor. With expensive tools and machinery like lathes, mills, grinders. Machinery thats expensive even for buying second hand.

Anyone who trys such a project without that equipment and a lot of skills as a mechanic will fail, definitely !

Just my opinion

Mike

Great point Mike, and I'm not minimizing the trickiness of building this stuff. I'm not very practical myself! But I guess I'm excited by the potential of, say, a group workshop. A bunch of guys building stuff like this for their local farmer friend at a much more reasonable price than the standard shiny (but expensive) multinational machine. A workshop that builds stuff from scratch is a workshop that can then easily repair it.

The lifetrack is modular. Bits of it, like the power cube (engine) can be disconnected and used to run other things. That's the beauty of it. It's not just a tractor. The other challenge is, if you really don't like the design, because this is all OPEN, you are free to get your team involved to engineer and design your own solution. (If time and your personal energy levels allow it).