B
Bret Cahill
Guest
Tell your case worker you need the dosage increased on your ADD drugs
because you cannot stay on topic for 2 seconds.
Bret Cahill
Navigation
Install the app
How to install the app on iOS
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
More options
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
because you cannot stay on topic for 2 seconds.
Bret Cahill
B
Bret Cahill
Guest
Here's the topic again. If you are incapable of focusing on thisAsk your case worker to provide more of that ADD (attention deficit
disorder) drug. You cannot stay on topic for more than 2 seconds.
I'd say that's more you problem.
topic, feel free to start another thread.
Few have the judgment to know what is cost effective without doing a
spread sheet, especially when considering untried technology.
Issues that don't seem all that important can have surprising effects
on the overall cost.
Every other industry hires industrial engineers, basically financial
accountants with an engineering background, to check out the cost
effectiveness of new technology. ? Any idea that comes up in house is
run by the IEOR dept. and gets a thumbs up or down.
State university extension centers have profs who study farm
economics, but they can't be expected to work every day with inventors
who haven't made up their minds.
More than a vague idea is required.
One poster recently drove everyone crazy on a Stirling group with his
vague idea concerning an unconcentrated solar roof engine. ?He framed
the debate claiming we couldn't prove it wouldn't be cost effective.
This was true because he never gave us anything except a vague idea so
we never had any numbers. ?I responded in kind with a lot of vague
generalities, i. e., roofing materials were the cheapest stuff ever
extracted from the earth yet roofing material still costs several
dollars /ft^2 installed, that cheap materials don't mean a cheap
engine because the materials in a gas turbine are cheaper on a per
watt basis than the materials in the penny/watt ICE, etc.
To get started float a very few definite ideas and then modify and add
and drop as necessary. ?If someone raises a spread sheet ?issue
without doing the spreadsheet, then no conclusions can be made.
The really hard part of inventing is to have the judgment so you don't
have to evaluate an infinite number of designs.
I'm currently looking for a Theory of Unnecessary Mechanical
Complexity:
If it has more than one moving part it's a bad design . . .
If it requires more machine work than a drill press it's a bad
design . . .
If it requires parts other than steel balls, pipes, bars or springs,
it's a bad design . . .
If it requires 3-D CAD it's a bad design . . .
KISS ?Keep It Simple Stupid
Bret Cahill
B
Bret Cahill
Guest
How do you know with seeing them?Which project?
All of them, since they are likely all as poorly presented as the one I
specifically had in mind
Are you suggesting that great inventors sometimes don't occasionally
have bad ideas? To the contrary, the bad ideas of a successful
inventor greatly out number the good ideas.
Successful inventors just have so many ideas, both good and bad, that
they can select and choose the good ones.
You have really demonstrated you are ignorant of the design process.
Now everyone knows where this is going.
You will eventually flee into full issue dodging mode and the
newspaper will get rolled up and you'll get house trained just like a
puppy.
Apparently puppy training is in big demand around here.
Bret Cahill
"There are no bad ideas."
-- the Governator
D
Dean Hoffman
Guest
BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:
irrigation. Running water down a row is too inefficient. The pipe you
see was probably purchased long ago when aluminum was cheaper and there
was no better way of irrigating. There are still places where it is
practical due to slope and cost.
Aluminum pipe really didn't have to meet much in the way of
standards. Electrical wiring does.
High dollar specialty crops are pretty well limited to California
and the Southwest, I think. The Midwest is mainly corn, soybeans,
wheat, and some milo. Try corn at $2.50 and 200 bushels/acre. The
average yield is somewhere around 145 bu./acre nationally. Think about
wheat at $4.50/bushel with a yield of 55 bu/acre.
apt to make bad connections or a possibly lethal mistake. You'd
probably need some super dooper version of a lamp plug.
somewhere around one and a half times as much as a circle pivot or more
if memory serves. Linears are mainly sold in California and other
places with high dollar specialty crops.
The only linears I know of in this area were purchased by seed corn
companies. They companies use them on their research farms. The
linears do a lot better job of water application than circle pivots.
The company I work for has sold hundreds of circle pivots and exactly
one linear.
Linears don't have a fixed point. How would you get the power to it
so it could power the tractor? Most use a generator mounted on the
unit powered by a diesel engine. The very few that don't are cord drag.
The one in my area uses a four conductor cord with #8 copper, I think.
You'd have to go to a very heavy cord to power the linear to power the
tractor.
The last difficulty is lateral moves are limited to fairly flat
ground. I don't remember the slope limitations but there are a lot of
places they won't work.
be abandoned if tractors were exclusively all electric. Small patches
might not be viable due to lack of power. Our friends in the government
might object in some cases.
It doesn't take much of a water way to get the EPA or the Corp of
Engineers involved from the stories I've heard.
ones for each
farm. They have accountants and bankers to help them with such things.
They don't get operating loans if the cash flow projections aren't
favorable. There is also specialized farm accounting software.
These guys are businessmen in jeans and seed corn hats.
parts of the world can't do the same?
Farmers actually have less and less control as time goes on. There
are a lot of people like me that do the technical stuff for them. I fix
pivots. Tractor mechanics, well men, truck mechanics, grain handling
people, spray and fertilizer applicators, and others keep them going.
Farmers of my grandparent's generation were a lot more self
sufficient. Farms had chickens, hogs, cattle, and gardens.
Farmers still needed outsiders to get by but not to the degree modern
farmers do.
Nowadays the only livestock on a farm might be the dog.
----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
Farmers are getting rid of it in favor of pivots or sub surfacere cables to power electric tractors...
see ďż˝"center pivot irrigation"
If they can do this, they can figure out how to get a cable to a
tractor.
Mark
ďż˝ ďż˝ ďż˝ There's a world of difference in the power requirements. ďż˝ Center
pivot motors are three phase 480 in the U.S. �The older ones used either
a single one horsepower motor or a horse and a half motor. �The newer
ones use motors half that size. �The older ones had 10 AWG Cu in the
span cable to power the pivots that were 1/4 mile long. �The newer ones
can get by with 12 AWG Cu to power the motors.
I'm sorry you missed my point.
My point is not about the amount of �power needed to run the
irrigators vs a tractor... ďż˝ My point was, if a machine can be
designed to distribute WATER through a PIPE �to a large circular area
like that, then a similar machine can be designed to distribute a
power cable to a tractor over a similarly large area.
Mark
� � �I should've written more about what I was getting at.
� � �The amount of power required would be a design consideration. �The
weight of the necessary wire to allow for the voltage drop could be an
issue. �The system would have to be strong enough to support both the
cable and the water if one wanted to use the system to irrigate. �The
cost of the wire would be a big issue.
� �250 MCM is about $8/foot. �300 MCM is about $9.60/foot. �4/0 is about
$6.75/foot. �Prices are for THWN 2 which isn't suitable for the use, but
the price was fairly easy to find.
I was acutely aware of prices of electrical wire at the time which is
why I wasn't too keen on trolley wiring the entire field, although
quite frankly, that couldn't cost any more than all those miles of
aluminum irrigation pipe they lay down and take up just for one crop
of lettuce.
Aluminum irrigation pipe is being sold for scrap in this area.
irrigation. Running water down a row is too inefficient. The pipe you
see was probably purchased long ago when aluminum was cheaper and there
was no better way of irrigating. There are still places where it is
practical due to slope and cost.
Aluminum pipe really didn't have to meet much in the way of
standards. Electrical wiring does.
ďż˝ ďż˝ Using 3 runs of 300 MCM plus one run of 250 MCM would total about
$48,000. �Irrigation systems are a lot higher than I thought. �I guess
they cost around $70,000 for a standard 1300 foot 7 tower system. �That
comes to about $968/acre if I pushed the right buttons on my elcheapo
calculator.
A berry field brings in at least an order of magnitude more money in
just one season.
So what is the net profit?This is getting ridiculous.
High dollar specialty crops are pretty well limited to California
and the Southwest, I think. The Midwest is mainly corn, soybeans,
wheat, and some milo. Try corn at $2.50 and 200 bushels/acre. The
average yield is somewhere around 145 bu./acre nationally. Think about
wheat at $4.50/bushel with a yield of 55 bu/acre.
unwiring constantly would take its toll. Someone in a hurry would beďż˝ ďż˝ That wouldn't include some sort of flexible cord and plug to
actually get the power to the tractor. � �I wonder if such a thing as a
250 amp �plug in actually exists or would be safe to use if it did.
Years ago I worked in a machine shop making circular 1" diameter
single pole "lugs" for ships.
They'ld take 250 amps.
Terminal lugs are made for permanent wiring. Wiring and
apt to make bad connections or a possibly lethal mistake. You'd
probably need some super dooper version of a lamp plug.
Which brings up the cost issue again. Linear machines costďż˝ ďż˝ I can't picture how the actual working of it would be practical.
Let's say the farmer will plant in a circle to match the pivot. ďż˝ Put
the tractor at the first tower traveling at 5 mph. �The 7th tower would
have to travel at 35 mph. �Thirty five miles an hour in a field?
Break it up into concentric circles. I mentioned this last summer.
But if you need a controller to prevent binding, you might as well go
to the linear irrigator.
somewhere around one and a half times as much as a circle pivot or more
if memory serves. Linears are mainly sold in California and other
places with high dollar specialty crops.
The only linears I know of in this area were purchased by seed corn
companies. They companies use them on their research farms. The
linears do a lot better job of water application than circle pivots.
The company I work for has sold hundreds of circle pivots and exactly
one linear.
Linears don't have a fixed point. How would you get the power to it
so it could power the tractor? Most use a generator mounted on the
unit powered by a diesel engine. The very few that don't are cord drag.
The one in my area uses a four conductor cord with #8 copper, I think.
You'd have to go to a very heavy cord to power the linear to power the
tractor.
The last difficulty is lateral moves are limited to fairly flat
ground. I don't remember the slope limitations but there are a lot of
places they won't work.
There are probably places where it would be. Other places wouldThrough the gullies and over ridges or an occasional washout? �Uh, no.
ďż˝ ďż˝ The pivot would have to make a lot of circles to complete the
planting. ďż˝ Pivot wheel tracks are an issue during irrigation. ďż˝ They
probably would be too for this application.
ďż˝ ďż˝ Another consideration would be mud holes or obstacles for the pivot
to get through or stop at. �Odd shaped fields would also create problems.
Supposing it would be worthwhile to eliminate all the obstacles
first?
be abandoned if tractors were exclusively all electric. Small patches
might not be viable due to lack of power. Our friends in the government
might object in some cases.
It doesn't take much of a water way to get the EPA or the Corp of
Engineers involved from the stories I've heard.
Yeah, they do. One farmer I know mentioned that he runs separateSomeone needs to do a spreadsheet on capital costs, operating costs
including diesel . . .
Do farmers use spread sheets? That may be the problem right there.
ones for each
farm. They have accountants and bankers to help them with such things.
They don't get operating loans if the cash flow projections aren't
favorable. There is also specialized farm accounting software.
These guys are businessmen in jeans and seed corn hats.
What crops? What's unique about that valley that people in otherThe farmers in one valley have a unique situation; near zero
uncertainty. They just read up on whatever is selling at a high price
and the next day they are planting it. It's impossible for them to
not make a killing.
parts of the world can't do the same?
How so?That's really what gave me the idea for the super pivot. Every farmer
should have complete control.
Farmers actually have less and less control as time goes on. There
are a lot of people like me that do the technical stuff for them. I fix
pivots. Tractor mechanics, well men, truck mechanics, grain handling
people, spray and fertilizer applicators, and others keep them going.
Farmers of my grandparent's generation were a lot more self
sufficient. Farms had chickens, hogs, cattle, and gardens.
Farmers still needed outsiders to get by but not to the degree modern
farmers do.
Nowadays the only livestock on a farm might be the dog.
ďż˝ ďż˝ The last problem that comes to mind is coordinating the pivot speed
to the tractor speed over the length of the pivot. �I suppose some
bright college boy could do that but it wouldn't be cheap.
Billions are at stake.
I'm not a spread sheet type myself but with peak oil, we'll all have
to work harder. Maybe it's time to do some work on X Cell.
Bret Cahill
----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =---