fun-gineering thread

[|ndußtrial]

most things that i play around with, i would test on my own time, but i think some of them may make for good conversation; if you have your own ideas to talk about, post them here! (just remember to patent them beforehand, if they're a genuine revelation!)



recently, i've been planning a little watercraft using thick pvc piping (four-inch diameter, schedule 40) for buoyancy, and after actually reading a bit about boat hulls, i had a few ideas on how to produce my hulls.

i have very little knowledge of the actual operation of boats, and this is more of a sudden appearance of an interest than a lifelong, well-developed hobby.

(keep in mind, though a really technical discussion would be interesting (and for me educational,) i am by no means expecting you guys to plan my whole boat for me!!!)

after doing the reading, i came to consider a few facts:

1: i have no experience with boats, and so it would likely be safer to have a multihull craft than one which i could capsize through improper posture.

2: i have no experience with boat-building, and while i have some citation needed woodworking skill, i wouldn't be able to produce an aluminum hull out of nowhere (though, eventually, i do intend to acquire the equipment to do this.)

so far, my ideas for the hull amount to two hulls of pvc pipe, which are parallel to the direction of travel to the boat (of course,) and individually laid out somewhat like so:

Code: Select all

/    /
╠╦╦╦╦╣
║║║║║║
║║║║║║
║║║║║║
║║║║║║
║║║║║║
╠╩╩╩╩╣
\    \

║ - length of pipe
╣, ╠, ╩, ╦ - tee
/ - become forty-five degree elbows, which form the bow; the pipes on the other ends of the elbows extend until intersection, where they are connected by a single ninety degree elbow;
\ - extend to the stern, and are similar to the bow, but they terminate halfway into another set of forty-five degree elbows; this second set are then attached to the same length of piping, forming the stern.

i intend to some sort of expanded polyurethane foam between the piping, of a closed-cell variety and low density, and then attach rigid sheets of some material that won't corrode easily to both sides of these hulls, after which i'd probably coat the the hulls somehow, before incorporating them in the boat's construction.

do these sound like they would support the weight of a person, or possibly a few? and, would a system allowing them to be filled with air make them more buoyant or... dangerous? the ones i have in mind can work with up to 600 psi, and, if it's not wholly insane, i'm thinking of maintaining a pressure of no more than 30 bar (which would be ~435.113 psi.)

my boat hull resource

[DoomRater]

In modded Minecraft, one of the first things I like to do is set up some sort of autofactory. Autofactories in vanilla Minecraft aren't impossible to do, but they're genreally wasteful of fuel if you don't calculate how many items you need to put in at one time to ensure all fuel is perfectly used. But once the basic autofactory is all set, I'm left with the next challenge- how to make it bigger... faster, produce more resources.

I've started making flow charts of how an entire Ex Astris automation system worked so I could keep track of everything I was processing to create materials from cobblestone. Things I shoot for at this stage include modularity, because being able to slot in another system exactly like the one I've already built lets me expand the design whereever I might have room. Also, the feeling of having modules for the machinery help me troubleshoot when there's an issue. I typically use Ender Chests for this, but I can't help but wonder if Tesseracts would work better. By this point power and the resources to obtain or create fuel aren't an issue, so I'm free to experiment with now I want to generate resources.... but come on, who doesn't want to melt concrete into iron, or just grow fuel?

What I'd really like to get into designing though, is a Precursor Shipyard. It would literally be designed to help a player build a giant Precursor ship complete with expandable modules, just like in Star Control 2. Whether it'd be fliable or not though depends on Archimedes Ships being in a pack, and that's not always desirable either. Still, I've seen some mods that make it possible, like RFTools and Modular Forcefield System. when is BuildCraft going to put the Build back in BuildCraft anyway? all anyone ever uses out of it these days is the quarry....

[kodi]

I know nothing about engineering, but one thing I've thought about is whether it'd be possible to make a stepless transmission by using a set of three hydraulic jointed arms between to axles. Changing their length relative to each other would then alter the speed and torque (if it'd even work theoretically).

[PWAD Pete]

Does chemical engineering count? I've tried making iron oxide by running an electrified wire and nail into salt water, and now I've got a buildup of reddish-brown crap at the bottom of the jar. I need to know how I could get the stuff filtered out easiest. Should I just boil the water away in a kitchen pot?

[Ethril]

I use a big ol' spanner to beat up invisible Frenchmen. Now, the application of blunt object to skull ain't terribly creative, but it sure as hell works.

[DoomRater]

I'm really unsatisfied with traditional heavy bags as they're anything but indestructible. When I built the tire bag I expected it to be something that might fall apart but it looks like everything I used worked far better than the commercial heavy bag my mom bought me long ago. I don't have to worry about a stack of tires getting wet, I don't have to worry about what I hit them with (sledgehammers won't split seams on tires) and even without using any metal bolts it's stayed together for over a year. Until of course I wasn't there anymore and the construct was cut down, but it barely cost me anything, just the price of the rope. I'll have to build another and secure it a little better this time around, maybe with a pulley.

[|ndußtrial]

I know nothing about engineering, but one thing I've thought about is whether it'd be possible to make a stepless transmission by using a set of three hydraulic jointed arms between to axles. Changing their length relative to each other would then alter the speed and torque (if it'd even work theoretically).

sounds like something you could test at a smaller level with a few components adjusted for size and an electric hobby motor... i say try it out!

I use a big ol' spanner to beat up invisible Frenchmen. Now, the application of blunt object to skull ain't terribly creative, but it sure as hell works.

not necessarily... especially if you have a few solid metal balls rolling around with a diameter of an inch or two and plenty of long socks!

Does chemical engineering count? I've tried making iron oxide by running an electrified wire and nail into salt water, and now I've got a buildup of reddish-brown crap at the bottom of the jar. I need to know how I could get the stuff filtered out easiest. Should I just boil the water away in a kitchen pot?

to start off, chemical engineering absolutely does count!

i've actually been hoping to mess around with synthesizing a few compounds in the near future, so i was able to google that method and found a page detailing the apparent complexity of the process. it's a forum post, and the second response details quite a bit of the limitations of iron oxide electrolysis - everything from the materials used to the actual exact nature of the steps taken.

the poster also provides an alternative -

That all said - if you want to produce rust - buy a sack of #0000 steel wool. Light it with a match. (Remove sack first.) Filter through a coffee filter w/ distilled water.

seeing as ive got a little bag of that stuff, i could possibly try it myself...

also, in case you reach for a tea strainer to perform the aforementioned process, i would advise you to read this (i didn't know the difference myself, at the very least.)

I'm really unsatisfied with traditional heavy bags as they're anything but indestructible. When I built the tire bag I expected it to be something that might fall apart but it looks like everything I used worked far better than the commercial heavy bag my mom bought me long ago. I don't have to worry about a stack of tires getting wet, I don't have to worry about what I hit them with (sledgehammers won't split seams on tires) and even without using any metal bolts it's stayed together for over a year. Until of course I wasn't there anymore and the construct was cut down, but it barely cost me anything, just the price of the rope. I'll have to build another and secure it a little better this time around, maybe with a pulley.

have you heard that theory that companies are cutting down on production cost and killing quality in the process? I've definitely noticed it over time, with everything from phones to computers; it seems like, around fifteen years ago, you could buy a phone that was state of the art for around 300% of the production cost, and now it's these glass rectangles with cutouts from soda cans wrapped around them sold at 6000% inflation - and the big updates all happen to be graphical, aesthetic, or even just slight modifications to hardware dimensions (a one-inch screen size increase is worth 50$ more?,) especially with phone manufacturers.

[enderkevin13]

Never really thought of engineering anything...

[|ndußtrial]

update on my boat - stuck between some kind of pontoon-equipped type craft, a barge raft and a hovercraft.

[printz]

I did try building some printed circuit boards at home while I was an electronics student, to try to get the hang of it... The most I ever got was a very basic distorted amplifier with a speaker, to which I connected my guitar. It still works of course, and it's just as good as the already expensive and oversized real amplifier i have in my apartment (!) which obviously i never dared to put to max volume.

Generally, trying to make analogue electronic circuits is far less fun than my real hobby, which is software programming. Back to electronic engineering, digital and embedded circuits are a bit better and are all the buzz these days (see all that craze about FPGA/Arduino/Raspberry Pi/internet or things), but I generally dislike building things that require too much precision, so I still prefer to focus on software. Finally, the other kind of important electronics is power electronics, which is also very important these days because we need all the power we can get.

I also tried the electrolysis experiment with a couple of nails. The problem: what exactly is forming there? Copper chloride? Iron (II or III) chloride? What if it's toxic?

[|ndußtrial]

I did try building some printed circuit boards at home while I was an electronics student, to try to get the hang of it... The most I ever got was a very basic distorted amplifier with a speaker, to which I connected my guitar. It still works of course, and it's just as good as the already expensive and oversized real amplifier i have in my apartment (!) which obviously i never dared to put to max volume.

Generally, trying to make analogue electronic circuits is far less fun than my real hobby, which is software programming. Back to electronic engineering, digital and embedded circuits are a bit better and are all the buzz these days (see all that craze about FPGA/Arduino/Raspberry Pi/internet or things), but I generally dislike building things that require too much precision, so I still prefer to focus on software. Finally, the other kind of important electronics is power electronics, which is also very important these days because we need all the power we can get.

I also tried the electrolysis experiment with a couple of nails. The problem: what exactly is forming there? Copper chloride? Iron (II or III) chloride? What if it's toxic?

the electrolysis forms multiple compounds; supposedly, if instructions are followed, there should be nothing toxic, but this is assuming that only the metals one was instructed to use were actually utilized in the process...
oddly enough, i like programming in the theoretical aspect, where you plan a script, but i hate the coding itself; i always get really miffed by the errors and now i can't get myself to open my projects