permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Paul Cereghino wrote:

> Some thoughts based just my time on bicycles:
>
> If the tillage tools are static (being dragged through the soil), than I 
> bet your main issue will be the friction of the tillage tool vs. the 
> traction of your drive tires. 

The toolbar will be adjustable sideways, for the angle of approach to the 
ground and
for height above the bed. The teeth (tines and/or blades or other 
[blunt-ended, case-hardened,
tapered dowel pins, teeth off cotton picker, engine valves]) can be long or 
short,
with forward hook or not, round, blade, etc. and can be angled perpendicular 
to the ground,
forward or rearward; many variation on tillage depth, tine type and angle of 
approach.
I would raise the toolbar for the first pass and till/rake at a shallow depth 
and increase that depth with every pass.
Because of this proposed method the machine should be easily propelled along and across the beds. It would take some 
effort to pull the machine through muddy ground. The beds have narrow furrows between them and are partially filled with 
loose garden soil. I would not attempt any operation until the soil had dried out pretty well.


> This requirest that the weight above your 
> static tool be heavy.  Since you'd be operating at low speed you'll also 

Good reason to create a riding tillage machine; you have the weight needed 
for traction and for keeping
the tiller forced into the ground.

Initially, all I was trying to do was create a seedbed
but after looking at my fields this afternoon and seeing all the rye and 
fescue grass growing there
I can see a need to actually use this machine to at least partially, if not 
completely, uproot the grass,
which, if left to grow, will dominate much of the garden space.

The thing about this machine is that you can get out in the garden with it to 
repetitively
remove weeds and keep the surface of the soil open, loose and aerated, until 
time come to plant seed or starts.
This could be an extremely useful device for row croppers as well as raised 
bed gardeners, for market production or
homestead use.


> have an issue with intertia, in that if you have a heavy machine with 

The machine should be constructed with lightweight components. Points of stress and wear can then be made of heavy, 
strong and wear-resistant materials.

> drag due to friction in the soil, it'll take some energy just to get 
> moving forward, your gear ratio for low gears would need to be extreme.
>
> On a bike at low speed with lots of drag, you can get to a point where 
> you need so much torque to just get going, but the second you get going 
> your too geared up to maintain intertia while switching gears.  So how 
> about this as a weird idea:

You're going to be moving very slowly along the beds, making multiple passes 
most likely.
With each pass you can till deeper and move along faster. This makes 
maintanance easier.
After crops are planted this machine could make use of a configuralbe toolbar 
accomodating
tillage teeth or tines or blades that cultivate the soil between the crops, 
and on the sloping sides of the beds.
This is the direction to take when moving toward a permanent notill raised 
farming method.
No fossil-fueled farm equipment wouldbe needed after a certain point. With 
the addition of a seed delivery device
this machine could be used to plant crops. Seed could be dropped into loose soil then slightly covered with some other 
tooling that followed behind.

> If you already need to be heavy to get your traction on the drive 
> wheels, what about some design that uses a flywheel for the drive 
> impulse.  The pedel crankshaft builds up intertia in the flywheel... 
> once intertia is built up, some kind of clutch is used to engage the 
> flywheel gear it down to provide a high torque/low speed rotation on the 
> traction tires.  The weight of the flywheel doubles function to enhance 
> traction.  The pedel power and crank shaft gearing is then used only to 
> build up and maintain the flywheel inertia, but is not needed to 
> overcome the initial and variable friction of the business end of the 
> tool... the potential energy of the flywheel smooths the energy 
> requirements while providing the weight for better traction.

This would be the icing on the cake and could make the difference in rough 
terrain
or when an operator weighs a lot. What about the gyroscope effect? Wouldn't 
you need a two axis flywheel system?
And wouldn't this machine, with or w/o flywheels need to be front wheel 
drive, 4-wheel, or just settle for rear
wheel, the easiest and cheapest system?

> The alternative approach would be to use forward momentum as your 
> intertia, but I was not imagining this creature would operate at foward 
> high speeds!

Forward momentum would be a negligible factor on flat ground or going up 
slopes but could help going downhill, maybe a lot.

> Since tire friction isn't an issue at low speed, consider radical tire 
> traction.  I have seen partially submerged rice planting rigs that have 
> tires like paddleweels to maintain traction in mud.

Is certain terrain this might be useful as would rubber tracks, less 
compaction,
better traction, maybe less work. Traxpediller.



LL
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://market-farming.com/venaurafarm
http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com/
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech