CEB

Lime stabilized compressed earth blocks

MONICA HEALY — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:26:16 -0700

5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD STABILIZE CEBs WITH LIME.

1 - Forthe best resistance and longevity.

2 – To avoid rain and weather problems during construction.

3 – Tobuild intelligently guiding your construction towards energy saving, materialsaving and labor saving.

4 – To have the most sustainable material, free of allenrgens.

5 - To save time, cement and labor.

Use power steering pump/actuator arm for cheaper construction?

jerryshaw — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:46:59 -0700

Has anyone considered using a power steering arm from a car/light truck/even a semi, and a pump from the same thing turned by some smaller engine, to make an easy and cheap power earth rammer? The $5-7k cost is still a little high for more hobbyist type use.

A power steering pump should put out 700psi possibly more with some modifications, the force is going to be less of course, it might have to use two rams or make smaller bricks or add a lever arm. Having not played around with power steering actuators before it may not be possible to make it work hydraulic only but even if youre manually cranking a wheel still attached the hydraulic amplification will be far far easier than a manual cinva or leverage-only style press. Or maybe a motor could be added replacing the steering wheel, since it's boosted by hydraulics and that creates most of the power. Dont know if stroke length will be long enough. The ability to use normal cheap power steering hoses is also a plus. The cheapness of such a press however is a huge plus, even if it's only 1/5th the volume of what is being proposed you could probably build 10 or more of them for the cost of junkyard finds.

Is this a good idea or dumb?

Improved hopper idea

Wolfrick — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:13:30 -0700

I've got an idea for an improvement for the hopper design for the CEB.

I'm new here, so if this isn't in the right spot, kindly redirect me.

In summary, the idea is this: Instead of a small hopper bin which has to be hand-loaded with buckets (as in the video) a larger, moveable hopper, as wide as the bucket of the service tractor or skid-steer loader is constructed.

It has an angular bottom to feed the contents by gravity into the original hopper of the CEB (1?)

The upper part of the movable hopper is designed so that one edge has a blade like the blade of the loader, and the other long edge has hooks for attaching EITHER to the loader's frame, or to the bucket itself.

In this configuration, the service loader can pick up the hopper and drive it into the prepared soil, scooping the hopper full.

The full hopper is then driven back to the CEB and set back down into place. A gate can be made to open and close itself, preventing the hopper from losing soil through the bottom when in transit.

A further refinement of the design could include a mixing auger inside the hopper to allow mixing of the soil in the hopper and assisting feeding of the soil down into the funnel.

I can provide drawings if clarification of this idea is desired. Let me know what you think.

~Rick

manual press

vmpolesov — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:05:06 -0700

Have you thought of manual press? Like this one maybe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHfSd1Lkgss

I think they did a good job and this is well within my welding/fabrication skills. But I don't think they have open source plans. They seem to be a different project than you people. But I wouldn't be surprised if both groups were burning man types.

??Progress

scott — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:50:07 -0700

I haven't seen anything on the progress of the Liberator and some questions are:

1) What the schedule for the design and manufacture?

2) Are you still pressing the block along the big side (i.e. 6X12)?

3) What are some of your challenges?

Interlocking Bricks

marcin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:45:21 -0700

Friends,

It looks like we'll be going with interlocking bricks as far as the design evolution for Prototype 2.

The particular brick profile, which can be created without major modifications of the press design - is shown at the wiki:

is shown:

http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Interlocking_Bricks

The advantages over non-profiled bricks are:

1. Mortarless stacking becomes feasible.

2. Laying of bricks can be about twice as fast if no mortar is used.

3. Shot-crete or mud splatter gun can be used for rapid finishing - http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Splatter_Gun

4. We have field experience using this profile

5. Allows curvilinear and right angle walls

Disadvantages:

1. Corners may be more difficult to finish using the feasible brick profile

2. Added machine complexity

3. No field experience with using this profile at Factor e Farm

4. Requires more quality control on brick height for easy laying

5. Does not allow for building of round structures

What do you think, should we go with interlocking profiles for ease of building at the added machine complexity?

Marcin

Cylinder Mounting

Rob — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:10:46 -0700

I've attached a blend of a 5 x 8 cylinder from parker.com that would be similar to the one you are looking at for the CEB 2 (just incase you could use it). Would this be a shorter stroke than the cylinder that was used on the first press?

"CEB CLEVIS MOUNT" is a clevis mount that may allow you to "shim up" the cylinder to the height you needed. These are just a few ideas. I'll throw some things out there, I understand it may or may not help with where you're going.

CEB Prototype 2 Design

openfarmtech — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:23:42 -0700

We are starting a design forum for Prototype 2 of the CEB press:

•Large hopper version of The Liberator CEB press
•Automatic control via Arduino and hydraulic solenoid valves
•Soil pulverizer mounted in front of tooth bar bucket on LifeTrac
•MicroTrac provides independent power for the CEB press itself, as LifeTrac does soil loading

We are presently using Blender for initial 3D images, and then using LinuxCAE to do analysis and fabrication drawings. Join the team.

Marcin