DIY Thread - Let's see your "Inventions".

[krazykat0373]

Quote: well said, deb!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: Lets see It looks to be made of 1 x 8 by four foot long boards. Inside dimensions would put it at approximately 7.5" x 7.5" by 3.5 feet so a Gross estimate of the amount of feed it will Hold is:
1.37 cubic feet

A 50 lb bag of chicken feed is say 18 x 5 x 24 inches. Volume 2160 cu inches or 1.25 cubic feet.

So a little more than fifty pounds. unless I estimated volume incorrectly for each.

Thank you for making me do this little exercise. Me needs to go measure feed bags. My feed is fed in covered moisture protected areas and I NEED to feed 50 lbs at a time to last two weeks. Long story.

deb

 

[Bens-Hens]

They are entertaining. And I have gotten wonderful ideas from them.
I am certain its an invention. Invention starts this way ..... Believe it or not I have created wonderful inventions starting out with a left over cardboard box.... And got paid for it. Being innovative comes from a need and choosing a direction to fulfill that need. The first prototype may not last the test of time but it will prove PROOF of concept.
As a person who has worked in many areas of mechanical design I can tell you I have seen some amazing things STapled, glued, ductaped and riveted together and seen them do Amazing things. Sometimes people have handed me those "objects" and say make it so they can make it on a production line. Concept wise no changes needed materials ummm yes but that would be expected.

For instance I have never seen a liquid fertilizer maker. I do know the concept of making methane with a similar device. The one difference is the methane generator needs the Slurry to be agitated. Neither requires is a high tech approach. Containment and ease of operation are two essentials. Proof of concept is if they like the product that comes out. There comes the Little tweaks.... Better fittings, filtration devices..... you name it..... Even the amount of time the manure "percolates" may need adjustment.... who knows.

deb

Well said Deb. I am pretty sure early in the piece someone said this was more for DIY products that work, more than pure one off inventions. As for prototypes, the first is always made with the most basic of materials. I hold a patent for a mobile waste processing plant, and am about to submit for another design for patent, both of those were first laid out on a streamy shower screen window. I have no idea why, but the layout came to me and I had to draw it. Quite a bit of money later, it's made from steel and electronics, but it had to start someplace.

Also, dead right about the droppings drum. Two day's into it and I think it will need some sort of agitator to assist with the solids. I am thinking maybe a non conductive reach extension agitation probe broom handle with a nail in it for short!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: Also, dead right about the droppings drum. Two day's into it and I think it will need some sort of agitator to assist with the solids. I am thinking maybe a non conductive reach extension agitation probe broom handle with a nail in it for short!
Awesome Bens, Getting a patent is no small venture.... I do the drawings.

My dad was the inventor in the family. I am a facilitator. I am the one that you bring your product to and ask to make it easier to build. Or less expensive. I do some tweaking of designs but as to real invention I am not so creative.

I was brain storming with someone on this subject for the sole purpose to turn horse manure into methane. Because I had heard you could generate enough methane to run a car from a 55 gallon drum of horse manure... LOL. This fellow recommended I use an old agitator from a washing machine..... we got a great laugh at the irony..... Rows and rows of washing machines filled with Poo. And a big shower hat over each to collect the effervescence.... Too bad Methane cant be compressed. Sigh.

Agitator could also be a plaster mixer and a drill or reasonable facimile....

deb

 

[Pancholoco]

Thats a BIG feeder!! How many pounds of feed does it hold?

Aprox 30 pounds

 

[Bens-Hens]

Methane can be compressed, but it depends what gas is also with it. Before moving to the waste industry I work on offshore oil processing plant, specifically to maintain the gas compression plant. Where the issue comes with compressing the methane and other elements than for the gas body is the oxygen. When oxygen is present it has the potential to to reach it's ideal explosive range, then it 'diesel's' and then....well let's just say at best there is a lot of paperwork.

In the case your talking about we also has a customer that ran Caterpillar gen sets off the methane's emitted from landfills. High maintenance on the equipment, but they made good money selling the power back into the grid. The engine's sucked on PVC pipes sunk into the waste and the intake stroke drew it's own fuel gas from the pile. No compression required, but it also meant the fuel gas could not be stored above ground.

Digester systems are good, but hard to justify the output on small scale.

As for my patent, I used someone just like you We did drawing (after the shower screen) then made it, then had to reverse draw it for the IP submission. Will have to do the same again for this next unit we are about to finish. Cost a packet to get done (all up) but it's a little piece of mind having some IP security.

I like to tinker, and I love to see other's tinker away at projects too.

 

[loveourbirds]

Methane can be compressed, but it depends what gas is also with it. Before moving to the waste industry I work on offshore oil processing plant, specifically to maintain the gas compression plant. Where the issue comes with compressing the methane and other elements than for the gas body is the oxygen. When oxygen is present it has the potential to to reach it's ideal explosive range, then it 'diesel's' and then....well let's just say at best there is a lot of paperwork.

In the case your talking about we also has a customer that ran Caterpillar gen sets off the methane's emitted from landfills. High maintenance on the equipment, but they made good money selling the power back into the grid. The engine's sucked on PVC pipes sunk into the waste and the intake stroke drew it's own fuel gas from the pile. No compression required, but it also meant the fuel gas could not be stored above ground.

Digester systems are good, but hard to justify the output on small scale.

As for my patent, I used someone just like you We did drawing (after the shower screen) then made it, then had to reverse draw it for the IP submission. Will have to do the same again for this next unit we are about to finish. Cost a packet to get done (all up) but it's a little piece of mind having some IP security.

I like to tinker, and I love to see other's tinker away at projects too.

i hope you have better luck than i did. the EPA approved it for me, but the local county health department wouldn't. i ended up setting up a place to compost. for some reason you cant store manure in a tank above ground here, but you can pile poop on the ground with no problems

 

[Bens-Hens]

Our little thing here is only small, top tank is about 15l. My compost barrel hold about 4 times that much hahahaha

Plus, we already have more than our 'allowable' limit of birds.

 

[ShayBaby]

I've come up with a couple of redneck "inventions" the last few days and thought I'd share, for funsies if nothing else lol. First, all my chick waterers were currently occupied and I needed a waterer in a hurry for my new batch of bantams, so I whipped one up with a water bottle and dish. The dish is actually a lid from a horse treat jug, but a peanut butter jar lid or something like that, a little tall, would work just as well. I initially tried using various adhesives to keep the bottle on the dish, but none stuck and I prefer it unattached now for refilling anywho. I cut a small, maybe cm square, hole on the side of the water bottle as close to the bottom as possible, to keep it below the top of the dish. Plug the hole with a finger, fill the bottle and tighten the lid, set in the dish and voila, redneck waterer. I don't have a proper pic of it, but you can see it in this shot, pardon the shavings kicked in the water.. Also, today I got a batch of hatching eggs in the mail. I went to find a carton to rest them in, air cell up, but realized we had no cartons left! So DH and I came up on the spot with this idea to cut off the tops of pop bottles, which we have an excess of, and place them upside down in cookie trays (we don't eat as much junk foods as it sounds I swear LOL). We did this and went to town, where I picked up some cartons from TSC. When we got home, I tried to switch the eggs over to the cartons, and these tiny Serama eggs flopped around all over the place. My redneck pop top "invention" works 100% better at holding these little babies still and upright than an egg carton! This is if you have somewhere to put the eggs where they won't get jostled around. The pop "cups" do fall over a heck of a lot easier than a carton would. But it's working perfectly for the 12-24 hr "resting" period before I pop the eggs in the incubator!

we Ohioans gotta stick together

. im sitting here drinking a Mt Dew flavored pop right now! some of those chicks look familiar. do you know if you got any cuckoo cochins yet?

That's right, Brian! *pop bottle toast* I'm not sure WHAT I have yet lol. The ones I think are Cochins could turn into cuckoo yet. Oh, and that is a beautiful feeder, LoveofChickens! Makes me rethink my whole PVC plans.

 

[perchie.girl]

Methane can be compressed, but it depends what gas is also with it. Before moving to the waste industry I work on offshore oil processing plant, specifically to maintain the gas compression plant. Where the issue comes with compressing the methane and other elements than for the gas body is the oxygen. When oxygen is present it has the potential to to reach it's ideal explosive range, then it 'diesel's' and then....well let's just say at best there is a lot of paperwork.

In the case your talking about we also has a customer that ran Caterpillar gen sets off the methane's emitted from landfills. High maintenance on the equipment, but they made good money selling the power back into the grid. The engine's sucked on PVC pipes sunk into the waste and the intake stroke drew it's own fuel gas from the pile. No compression required, but it also meant the fuel gas could not be stored above ground.

Digester systems are good, but hard to justify the output on small scale.

As for my patent, I used someone just like you We did drawing (after the shower screen) then made it, then had to reverse draw it for the IP submission. Will have to do the same again for this next unit we are about to finish. Cost a packet to get done (all up) but it's a little piece of mind having some IP security.

I like to tinker, and I love to see other's tinker away at projects too.

Cool..... The only two places I have seen Methane used Was in Asia where it was kept in a BIG bladder on the roof of a buss to serve as fuel. The other place was in India where they have a huge digester tank about the size of on above ground swimming pool. It has a weighted cap as the gas builds up the methane was used directly plumbed to the Cook stove and heater. THAT tank produced liquid firtilizer in a big way.... LOL.

In a pure form It can be compressed but In order to compress it to a liquid form like propane the pressure tank itself becomes an issue. And like you say the compression level is enough to create ignition in the presence of Oxygen.

Like I said I am a gear head not a sparky.... and I read ALOT.... Lots of blank spaces in them braincells to fill.

deb