Based on some feedback from the CEB Hopper Problem Statement in the last post, here is a conceptual solution. This solution is readily doable using techniques available to us, and requires an additional ~$400 in CEB infrastructure material costs.

We can adapt our existing rototiller to make a rapidly spinning (500 rpm?) soil pulverizer in front of our tractor loader. This pulverizer is attached to the front end loader. As the tractor moves along slowly, the loader fills with loose soil created by the pulverizer. Thus, two steps are combined into one:

This streamlines the soil preparation process. Previously, we dug piles of soil with the loader, and we then used a small, walk-behind tiller to pulverize the soil to the desired fineness. We then shoveled this soil into buckets, and loaded the CEB hopper manually. Each of these tasks took about an equivalent amount of time.

These 3 tasks are combined into one, by design - with the pulverizing loader that subsequently dumps soil into a large hopper:

This hopper has an auger at the bottom to prevent bridging.

Comments?