Farm projects

I have been busy at the farm on a number of things the last six months.  One of my primary projects is getting up to speed on the solar grid system that was installed by a Dutch teammate who is only around every few months. There has been a historical lack of oversight and on-the-ground expertise to troubleshoot and manage power usage, and as the resident computer nerd, that task has fallen to me. That means planning new solar panel installation, setting up solar panel cleaning procedures (at its thickest, the dust cuts production by over 40%!), automating pump timing and adjusting parameters as needed.

Before on the right, after on the left.

Used a fan dial to allow manual operation if desired, and used a $3 eBay circuit board powered from a 5v USB adapter (clock is maintained by a coin cell) to turn the relay on and off. 

It's been fun to get a crash course in a whole lot of new equipment. I've worked on the following:

1) Timer controlled relays to manage motor controllers for pumps
2) Frequency derating for solar inverters to allow excess solar power to be properly controlled

I was also tasked with setting up internet at the farm. Recently, a 4G tower was put into operation a few kilometers away, and I discovered we could get fairly fast internet on top of the water tower. From there, I learned more about point-to-point 802.11n bridges, subnet masking and port forwarding, and have cobbled together a fairly reliable wireless network that provides internet access to 6 different areas on the farm, and automatically controls data usage through a quota system (using free software!)

When COVID-19 became serious, I was asked to adapt the concept of tippy-taps (touchless hand washing) to our local context. An afternoon of trial and error led to a cheap and effective solution using easily obtained materials. A set of two tippy-taps (one for soap, and one for water) costs less than $2. Through a gofundme type website in France, Beer Sheba was given around 10,000 euro to use for COVID-19 relief, and part of that was used to supply over 400 tippy-tap wash stations to families in villages around the farm. We organized the production and distribution of over 20,000 masks and many kilos of moringa powder (to support the nutrition/immune systems of elderly villagers).

Tippy taps using 13¢ bottles, 17¢ foot pedals, 38¢ string, 5¢ rebar. 

I was amazed at the generosity of folks wanting to support relief efforts here when there was so much need in their own countries.

There's a lot more happening, but will have to wait for the next post (hopefully sooner than two years from now)

(A)