They are terribly inefficient and who is going to be servicing all these hydraulics in the 3rd world? Every farming town in the USA has someone who can make custom hydro lines quickly. How many of those shops in Africa?
Petrol engines are inefficient. Solar panels are inefficient. Your and my metabolisms are inefficient. Suitability to purpose matters more in my humble opinion. Alongside modularity and reusability.
Please contribute anything you know about custom hydraulic lines to https://wiki.replimat.org/wiki/Main_Page - I will approve accounts for any hackernews folk who request one.
Go look at an old farmall or ford tractor and understand how they solved these problems 70+ years ago. Be careful thinking you are smarter than those engineers.
Great example. Compare the traction of your machine to an 8N. That engine will outlast 4-5 briggs engines easy (10K vs 2K hrs). They have an efficient gear drive as opposed to hydrostatic. Lots less maintenance and no need for gallons of hydro fluid. They have a robust 3pt hitch with an excellent PTO drive. They will drag your tractor up and down the field all day long. I really mean to be constructive, sorry if I am not sugar coating it.
I appreciate your enthusiasm. First of all, the design originates with Open Source Ecology, a sister project. I'm involved with Replimat. There's also Gridbeam, XYZ Cargo, Precious Plastic, and about a dozen other groups actively developing around the system(s).
I appreciate all your points about the sort of tractor best suited to your unique circumstances. I don't see anything about our communities designs which prevent you from constructing such a machine using our parts and techniques. I think it'd be a neat design to have among all the others which can be built this way!
I priced out BCS and Grillo units when I first moved here and in the end ended up getting a subcompact hydrostatic tractor and it frankly has probably worked out better for me (6.5 acre property ... 1/2 acre vineyard/orchard, 1/2 acre garlic + market garden veggies).
It's likely because the importation of the BCS units into Canada just ends up making them and the attachments quite expensive. If I was in Europe, or even the US, I think they'd be more cost effective.
The tractor + loader ended up being a more useful overall implement because the loader is just invaluable on a rural property generally. So many things made easier by being able to move around heavy loads. And snow clearance with a 70" snowblower is an entirely different story than walking behind a 30" one. I used to have Gravely walk behind with a snowblower on it and my back suffered for it.
I have 3ph rototiller, snowblower, rotary mower, posthole auger, toolbar with discs, s-tines, wood chipper, and single bottom plow. And access to a bunch of other stuff from the neighbours. All of those things would be potentially cheaper for a BCS unit, but much harder to get, and less powerful. The used market for standard 3ph attachments is much easier to deal with rather than the niche walk-behind stuff.
On the lower end I use a wheel hoe. And I'm currently working on restoring and electrifying an old planet jr unit.
The BCS and Grillo units are really neat. But the small farm market isn't big enough for them here to get proper dealer support, used equipment supply, and deal with the importation issues. All of the neat attachments weren't available to me without dealing with Earth Tools in the US, with all the brokerage and customs and shippings issues that would come with that.
