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Experimenting with Larger Ink Reservoirs

When I plot stuff that goes beyond a pen’s ink capacity, it’s a pain to swap pens. It’s a constant worry and the operation has the potential for ruining a plot. So I’m experimenting with ways to have enough ink on board, or maybe refill. Of course I’m learning that pens are designed within tight tolerances of pressure & viscosity.

I think this one is going to work. I made the reservoir’s volume 5 times that of an unaltered Precise v5 pen.

I always make an ink mess with each experimentation. I’ve learned that PLA printing is not liquid tight. And so thank you Nathan for the resin printing :). One other silly lesson I’ve learned is that various paper can suck up ink at different rates.

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Irrigation

It’s not much but for us it’s huge, we finally have enough water and ways to move it that we can give the gardens a good soak. For the past 9 years we’ve been reliant on the weather, which usually does its job in Vermont. Although when it didn’t, we’d be reactive and move a lot of water by hand only to keep plants alive. Now we’re able to soak several hundred square feet of soil whenever they could use it, and it’s less manual labor. Double win!

We want to build a rain capture system to diversify strategies, but that’s dependent on other projects. We’ll get there.