What do you do for a day job?

Phil Younger said:
This has been a very interesting thread to read through. Many of us our engineers or wrenches.

I grew up on a farm and never strayed too far from agriculture because I hate cities and have a great need to be in nature. I received my Ag Engineering degree at Purdue and just as I graduated agriculture had a big crash so I ended up designing, building and servicing grain systems and buildings for a while instead of working for Deere or IH. Then I managed sales people in Ag and petroleum for 20+ years (along with doing some trading in grain and energy). After that I managed a start-up business that went from concept to 40 million in 4 years. After the above stress related activities I decided it was time to get back to my roots- me, Ag, and design tools. For the last 8 years I have been designing, selling, and project managing irrigation projects from ground up. This means determining water needs, water source and horsepower, power source and electrical service design, field layout, piping sizes, thrust blocks, gun/nozzle sizing and location, center pivot span wheel track relative to terrain, pump selections, etc. etc. I lately have been doing about 1/2 wastewater irrigation for food plants and indoor fish farms but the other half has been normal irrigation for vegetable crops like potatoes or non-vegetable feed crop land.

The really nice things nowadays are I set my own schedule (but have all my life), have a mix of outdoor and indoor work, travel is limited to pretty much in state with almost no overnights, and the people I work with are good honest country grown folks who don’t generally have weird ideas about how the world should be or those out to screw you.;)

I’ll retire at the end of this year and plan on doing some engineering consulting on large wastewater projects - some well outside of the Midwest.

Small dairy wastewater lagoon and pump to contain and apply forage pad runoff water;
View attachment 182147

And how the water is applied:
View attachment 182151
This machine spreads the nutrient rich water out where the crops will absorb and benefit from it rather than flowing down thru grassed ditches where there would be potential that some would reach a stream. Machine is remote control via cell phone or computer and there are moisture sensors in the field to guide against over application.
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Does that arm rotate? If so, maybe that helps me understand why I see circular farms when flying over the midwest. I have no idea why that's the case but this could help explain it.
 
I'm a Mechanical Desinger. I work at an IOT solutions company that also has a subsidiary that makes vintage audio equipment. I design mechanical enclosures, cables, brackets, etc. You name it I can find a way to put it in CAD. I run Solidworks, but can use any CAD software given a bit of time to walk around in it. I worked a few years designing ignition systems for aerospace too.

I hope to have a CAD model of my TJ so I can design custom TJ components.
 
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Lilbomb said:
Currently Parts Manager at Michael's Reno Powersports in Reno, NV. Moved here from San Jose Aug. 2019. Worked at Grand Prix in Santa Clara for 25 years before the move. Was the Parts Manager for a long time and Service Manager for the last 5 years before moving. I've spent 25 years of time and money on motorcycles. Got the Jeep a little over a year ago and now found a new hobby in it. Still into bikes but not as much. Looking forward to putting some time and money into the Jeep in the years to come. Was Motor Transport in the Marines from '93-'97 right out of high school which is what got me into machines and wrenching.
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Small world. I had lunch with David Guy last week, you had to know him, as well as Beanie Baby Craig (I sponsored the Aprilia Cup effort 20 years ago, with his rider Geep). I raced AFM/WSMC/WERA/AMA Pro/Formula USA/CCS for almost two decades. Reno area is on my list of spots to escape to from Silicon Valley, lots of friends up there. Congrats on the move!

I now run a certification program in an executive center (post-graduate) at a university but spent a good part of my career in wealth management and private equity. I hope to convert my job to a permanently remote position so I can soon move to Boise, ID or the Reno, NV area. I hunt, fish, own guns, go offroad (bikes and Jeep) so California pretty much hates me...
 
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afmoto said:
Small world. I had lunch with David Guy last week, you had to know him, as well as Beanie Baby Craig (I sponsored the Aprilia Cup effort 20 years ago, with his rider Geep). I raced AFM/WSMC/WERA/AMA Pro/Formula USA/CCS for almost two decades. Reno area is on my list of spots to escape to from Silicon Valley, lots of friends up there. Congrats on the move!

I now run a certification program in an executive center (post-graduate) at a university but spent a good part of my career in wealth management and private equity. I hope to convert my job to a permanently remote position so I can soon move to Boise, ID or the Reno, NV area. I hunt, fish, own guns, go offroad (bikes and Jeep) so California pretty much hates me...
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California must hate me too. :) I also hunt (a lot) fish, Jeep, side by sides. I even guided pig hunts and Tule elk hunts in California for awhile.
 
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Welding fume and respiratory safety sales. Not very exciting but I've been able to work with companies ranging from small parts mfg up to making subs, destroyers, carriers, etc. LOTS of travel prior to Covid.
 
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Midtenn said:
Does that arm rotate? If so, maybe that helps me understand why I see circular farms when flying over the midwest. I have no idea why that's the case but this could help explain it.
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Yes - in the case of the one in the picture the machine rotates around the pivot point in the picture. The vertical water pipe has seals and basically a real long stainless steel bushing/bearing in it to allow for rotation and in the center of that is a 480V 3 phase wire in a conduit with a 11 wire collector (slip rings) to also allow for rotation. This means we can pipe water and supply power to one spot and swing the machine in a circle up to 2500' radius (most typical in Wisconsin are 1320' long 145 acre machines). This type is most common. Some of these "center pivots" will also have a "swing arm" or "corner arm" on the end that swings in and out into the field corners (the drive wheels on the last tower follow an underground guidance wire OR follow a GPS path). On any of these "circular" pivots the farthest tower from the pivot point is what all the inner towers follow (on a start/stop basis) when the alignment switches say to move. Such machines last 20-50 years depending on water quality, quality of design, and maintenance.

Another kind of irrigator looks similar but the whole machine moves across the field in a straight line. These have several types of guidance alternatives - they are called "linear irrigators" --they either have to drag along a water supply hose plus power supply wire OR they are built to pump out of a concrete ditch that they drive parallel to. This latter type will have a engine direct coupled to a pump that sucks from the ditch and the same engine is driving a small 10-20 KW 480V 3 phase generator that powers the machine.
 
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Phil Younger said:
Yes - in the case of the one in the picture the machine rotates around the pivot point in the picture. The vertical water pipe has seals and basically a real long stainless steel bushing/bearing in it to allow for rotation and in the center of that is a 480V 3 phase wire in a conduit with a 11 wire collector (slip rings) to also allow for rotation. This means we can pipe water and supply power to one spot and swing the machine in a circle up to 2500' radius (most typical in Wisconsin are 1320' long 145 acre machines). This type is most common. Some of these "center pivots" will also have a "swing arm" or "corner arm" on the end that swings in and out into the field corners (the drive wheels on the last tower follow an underground guidance wire OR follow a GPS path). On any of these "circular" pivots the farthest tower from the pivot point is what all the inner towers follow (on a start/stop basis) when the alignment switches say to move. Such machines last 20-50 years depending on water quality, quality of design, and maintenance.

Another kind of irrigator looks similar but the whole machine moves across the field in a straight line. These have several types of guidance alternatives - they are called "linear irrigators" --they either have to drag along a water supply hose plus power supply wire OR they are built to pump out of a concrete ditch that they drive parallel to. This latter type will have a engine direct coupled to a pump that sucks from the ditch and the same engine is driving a small 10-20 KW 480V 3 phase generator that powers the machine.
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Do you use different sized nozzles nearer the center pivot so that you get an equal application of water due to being closer to the water supply and also due to the smaller circle?
 
Apparition said:
Do you use different sized nozzles nearer the center pivot so that you get an equal application of water due to being closer to the water supply and also due to the smaller circle?
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Yes sir! Not only smaller nozzles near the pivot point but also farther apart. Fortunately computers do those calcs so i can focus on main flow and electrical stuff. First nozzle might be small as 1.8 GPM and the gun nozzle on the end may flow 60-300 GPM (but it throws out 105')
 
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I maintain apartments for work. One property with 117 units and one with 41 units. Been doing this for 11 years now. Previously I was a machinist, got layed off when the economy tanked and never looked back.
 
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I don't want to be told but have wondered what Chris does because he does such a great lob managing this site. The job he does here takes a lot of time and work. I am sure you do as well on your regular job.
 
Phil Younger said:
Yes sir! Not only smaller nozzles near the pivot point but also farther apart. Fortunately computers do those calcs so i can focus on main flow and electrical stuff. First nozzle might be small as 1.8 GPM and the gun nozzle on the end may flow 60-300 GPM (but it throws out 105')
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I love hearing about this stuff, especially since it seems a lot of entitled city folk think of farmers and associated workers as simpletons. It's a very technical and scientific thing to do. I used to work with a guy who was a full time engineer and also ran his family's farm/ranch and I think he did more engineering as a farmer than he did at his day job.
 
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