also how about a hammermill/rock crusher for the production of rock dust for fertiliser?

I would like to see a Tunnel Boring Machine considered for inclusion.

I do not think this would be unfeasable, too expensive, nor of too little utility... on the contrary it's often one of the best ways to dig under a road, or lets say I wanted to dig cooling tubes 6ft under the earth - I can either tear up my entire yard with a large ditch witch, or I could possibly dig out sideways. The size does not have to be huge, might be 6 inches or 18 inches. Digging into rock may not be feasible but at least dirt digging should be. The principles are pretty simple - the back half of the machine pushes outwards to stabilize itself against the walls and then a linear actuator pushes the front half, along with it's digging/drilling surfaces against the direction it wants to go.

The TBM is the easy machine probably. The slightly harder part would be trying to automate the placing of wall segments behind it which stabilize the earth or whatever so that it doesnt cave in behind you trapping the TBM and making it safe for. They are generally broken into arcs of 120 or less degrees and interlocking, both with each other (to make a 360 degree circle) and with the next segments (so there are not gaps between each placed ring). It also has to press them outwards enough larger than the diameter of the TBM so it can back itself out through the created tunnel.

This could be one of the best ways to run various types of lines inside a community if you dont want to tear up the lawn or want a depth deeper than the easily achievable 5ft or so that most ditch witches will go to. (for instance because of a deep frost depth - here in minnesota 5ft is really borderline, it can freeze that deep) The placing of drainage tile is often difficult because of the depth limit of a ditch witch and the need to carefully plan out the natural flow of the land despite high and low points to get it between minimum and maximum depths.

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Another area of eventual interest would be a Boom Lift - one way to replace scaffolding for instance and generally alot more useful, to get higher than a certain level requires ever wider and longer bases for stability, or perhaps some kind of other supports could stand out like spider legs so it wont tip over or go off balance... boom lifts are useful for everything from getting to the roof or working on 2nd story stuff in ways ladders cant let you, to building steel hangar type buildings, accessing the higher branches of trees (for instance fruit/nut trees), and would have applications for like utility pole type hookups although that is not often within the range or safety practices of the individual. Boom Lifts are normally totally dedicated and expensive pieces of machinery... obviously making it as an attachment for a normal LifeTrac or perhaps a larger sized one correspondingly scaled up lets you use most of that hardware for other things most of the time.


** Note - the reason for mentioning the above is simply to keep minds open, seeing whether there is some commonality of design that could be shared between multiple projects or some improvement that simultaneously applies to everything. It is not to force other people to work on the 'distraction' outside the core 50 at this point.

Me personally, I will be happy if we get these 50 designs as good quality working designs in several years. Let's hope for the best....

Regarding progress made during the last months, I am expecting the worst. And it looks as I am not the only one in the forum

Mke