Low-tech Magazine: How to make everything yourself

October 18, 2009

How to make everything yourself - online low-tech resources

Energy Bulletin pointed us to the website of Practical Action (previously known as the Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development), an online resource devoted to low-technology solutions for developing countries. The site hosts many manuals that can also be of interest for low-tech DIYers in the developed world. They cover energy, agriculture, food processing, construction and manufacturing, just to name some important categories.

We would like to add to this the impressive online library put together by software engineer Alex Weir. The 900 documents listed here (13 gigabytes in total) are not as well organised and presented as those of Practical Action, but there is a wealth of information that is not found anywhere else. The library is also hosted here (without search engine).

Other interesting online resources that offer manuals and instructions are Appropedia, Howtopedia and Open Source Ecology. These are all wiki's, so you can cooperate. The Centre for Alternative technologies has many interesting manuals, too, but the majority of those are not for free.

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Posted on October 18, 2009 in Books & References, Cover story, DIY, Low-tech solutions | Permalink

Comments

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(1)

Practical Action was originally called the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) and its head office is at the Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development, named after Fritz Schumacher the founder of ITDG and author of Small is Beautiful.

Posted by: Neil Noble | January 14, 2010 at 11:24 AM

(2)

Instructables should also be mentioned.

Posted by: Rasmus | February 08, 2010 at 06:13 PM

(3)

http://www.instructables.com/

Posted by: kdd | February 25, 2010 at 01:10 AM

(4)

Instructables thirded.

In 1999 most people were laughing about the (probably (apparently) unnecessary) disaster preparedness the alleged the Y2K event.
At that time I said "Why is it a bad idea to be ready for when something big goes wrong?" It's not going to be WW3 (probably) but overall it's not if but when. Sooner or later things will go wrong. A hurricane, earthquake, whatever 5 days worth of water and three days of food is never a bad idea.

Protip: a hand crank generated shortwave internet capable device is under $200. Food fuel and that and you are ready for almost anything.

Posted by: KDB | November 27, 2012 at 06:43 AM

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