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#mechanicaldesign
viridianriver · 9 months
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Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence
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I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.
I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.
I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.
How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.
Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.
Old Machine Guts
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The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.
New Machine Guts
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The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.
And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)
100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.
Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.
We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)
We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.
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s-h-r-o-m-p · 7 months
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sillys (war machines
sorry i haven't posted in a while ummm yea have some robots. these are for a worldbuilding project i've been working on for a while but i'm not going to say much about it right now because i dont feel like writing
the guy on the left is a human soldier (they're just there for a size comparison) the other three are prototype autonomous military units
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theoldbloomingroots · 1 month
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Custom death's head, commission for @lernaeaneidolon
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alt-adventures · 7 months
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beartitled · 5 months
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🐝New hive art!🐝
@braisedhoney
Non canon as you like it❤️
Those are just some fun concepts/head-canons I drew bc Hive obsession never lets me go
🐝 Ship location drawing
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I headcanon the idea that the whole ship runs on honey
(Honey is gathered and goes to producing food + producing honey fuel)
(Also wanted to draw 2 locations, but energy left me 😔 so 🫵maybe some day🫵)
🐝Pollinator’s backpack
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(Basically took the idea of irl pollination)
Crewmate sticks the sucking tube in the flower, and it sucks up all of the nectar. Nectar is stored in “pollen baskets”
🐝Bee mecha
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Bonus
Thanks to @demonicrhythms for showing me silly bear earrings💞🐻‍❄️
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nobylu · 8 months
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To the chagrin of my lancer pilot character who hates Balors after being poorly put back together by a swarm that mistook him as a chassis, I'm sticking him in a Fomorian Balor/Zheng/Sunzi build I'm lovingly calling Wrestlemania, but I'm stuck on how to get the Sunzi element in. A black hole on the head, under the head, or in the chest, or a big ass turbine?
Here's the approximate build if anyone's curious. The Nelson was mostly just to maintain Fomorian so I can wrestle God and not get knocked back ever so my swarm body sticks around. Once I'm in the fray, I'll be relying a decent amount on pals knocking treats over to me. I can also see myself swapping Nelson for Lancaster so I can winch foes, maybe, if that's a thing. My personalization minor mod (pending approval) is being able to manipulate my swarms shape so I can fit through regular sized doors.
-- HORUS Balor @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
HORUS Balor 2, IPS-N Zheng 2, IPS-N Nelson 1, HA Sunzi 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
Fomorian Frame, Universal Compatibility
[ TALENTS ]
Nuclear Cavalier 3, Duelist 3, Pankrati 2, Brawler 1
[ STATS ]
HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:0 ENGI:4
STRUCTURE:4 HP:25 ARMOR:0
STRESS:4 HEATCAP:8 REPAIR:6
TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+2
SPD:3 EVA:6 EDEF:10 SENSE:5 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
Integrated: Fuel Rod Gun
MAIN MOUNT: Charged Blade
HEAVY MOUNT: Thermal Lance
[ SYSTEMS ]
Swarm Body, Total Strength Suite II, Bulwark Mods, Total Strength Suite I, Personalizations, Accelerate
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Man I really hate artblock
Besides that I think dragons with mechanical wings are cool
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professionalscrublord · 10 months
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I drew an inside peek at the Atlas battlemech, using the Catalyst unit pic as a base.
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vaddala18 · 5 months
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mechdood · 6 months
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Guardromon, the guard robot Digimon, has had many faces and variations throughout the years...
Which one is your favorite?
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tide115 · 7 months
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Was supposed to be done with this before AC6 came out, but ended up spending more time on the effects/background. Not based off of any specific mech from the game, just the vibes I got from all the pre-release material (There did end up being a Balam head that looks pretty similar in the actual game though funnily enough)
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dadrobot · 6 months
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youtube
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s-h-r-o-m-p · 7 months
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ummmmmmmm dog
some otherworldly force took over my body for like an hour and this is what i ended up with. idk what to call it if you have any name ideas do let me know
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theoldbloomingroots · 30 days
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Mecha and mahine sketch dump
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aerospace-anant · 2 years
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Aerodynamics of F1
INTRODUCTION
It has now been more than 70 years since F1 first started and with growth in engine technology, the rules on the power units f an F1 car have become quite strict giving aerodynamics engineers a lot to play around to improve the performance of the car. Today we’ll be looking at the aerodynamics in an F1 car. Topics that I’ll be covering today:
1. Downforce and the ground effect
2. Front wing
3. Rear Wing
4. DRS
5. Diffuser
DOWNFORCE
Lift is generated in an aircraft by accelerating the air above the wings and thus creating a low pressure area above the wing and creating an area of slow moving air below the wing creating a high pressure area. This imbalance in pressure creates lift. A F1 car works on the exact opposite principle and is essentially an inverted wing. A F1 car tries to create a low pressure region below the car and a high pressure region above the car to increase the downforce. Now, you must be wondering that why is downforce given so much importance rather than reducing the drag force? Increasing the downforce improves the stability of the car and keeps it closer to the ground thus increasing its speed and traction around corners.
Fdown = 0.5DClAV²
Where, D= density of air
Cl=Coefficient of lift
A=frontal area
V= velocity of object
So, a F1 car at 100mph will produce roughly 750kg of downforce. Interestingly, lower weight limit of a F1 car is 743kg so you could in theory drive the car upside down.
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Ground effect – where the pressure of air under the car is lower than the pressure above the car, creating a sucking effect that pushes the car to the ground.
FRONT WING
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(IMAGE SOURCE- https://www.totalsimulation.co.uk/secrets-formula-1-part-3-role-front-wing/)
The front wing is a very important aerodynamic device in a F1 car. It has 2 main purposes, first to generate downforce and second to manipulate the flow to the rest of the car by controlling the vortices over and under the vehicle.
Endplates are one of the most important aspects of the front wing. They control the flow of air around the Formula One car by redirecting the airflow around the tires. This minimizes the overall drag resistance produced and facilitates the airflow to continue back to the side pods and the car floor. In addition, the tips of the front wings coincide with the ends of the tires. This creates unnecessary turbulence in front of the wheels and increases drag. Hence, the inside edges of the end plates are curved to ensure that the air flows around the tires.
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(IMAGE SOURCE- https://www.simscale.com/)
F1 front wings are sharply pointed and fine edged, to promote the creation of turbulent vortices, which the cascade elements direct underneath the floor of the car. Designers want to create vortices that they can control, but without endplates, both on the front wing and rear wing, uncontrollable vortices are produced, which add to the drag coefficient of the car but don’t increase downforce production, so are undesired. The fast moving vortices now travelling underneath the car are of higher speed and lower pressure than the air going over the car, thus increasing the downforce-ground effect.
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(IMAGE SOURCE- https://www.totalsimulation.co.uk/secrets-formula-1-part-3-role-front-wing/, LABELS- self)
REAR WING
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(f1 rear wing. Source- https://www.presticebdt.com/. Labels-self)
The rear wing is among the most regulated aerodynamic device of a Formula One car. Teams will have track specific rear wings depending on how much downforce is required on a particular track. The FIA allows a span of 101cm for the rear wing and an additional 5cm for each of the endplates. The end of the rear wings is designed and finished within these 5 cm on either side. The rear wing has to be 35cm in front of the rear tip of the car and have to be 22 or less cm deep.
The rear wing of a F1 has the aim to generate downforce to counterbalance the downforce produced by the front assembly. In fact, the force distribution alongside the vehicle determines the overall balance of a car. The rear wing of a F1 generates about ~10% less downforce than the front wing. The rear wing works quite differently than the front wing as it can’t exploit ground effect and work with disturbed flow.
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(Airflow over the rear wing. Source- https://www.presticebdt.com/the-aerodynamics-of-f1-rear-wing-cfd-explained/)
1. A main plane: the thicker profile of the rear wing assembly. This part remains fixed when DRS is open.
2. the smaller profile which acts as a slotted flap increasing downforce and preventing flow detachment. This part is moved and opened by the DRS system.
3. Middle trim: this part of the endplate, is sometimes trimmed in order to better drive the flow coming from the wheels and the bodywork.
4. Bottom trim/louvers: These louvers located in the lower part of the endplates are designed to work efficiently with the rear diffuser and exhaust gas.
DRS
DRS stands for drag reduction system, it was introduced in f1 in 2011 in order to improve overtaking. It is a device that allows the reduction of the downforce acting on the vehicle with less adherence to the track and therefore an increase in speed, but also with a decrease in stability.
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(Image source- https://www.presticebdt.com/)
The addition of the flap has the aim to increase the overall camber of the main wing, leading to an increased downforce and preventing flow separation.
When the airflow approaches the rear wing with DRS in closed position a large high pression area is generated on the upper side of the wing-flap profile, while a suction area is present underneath the profile. A qualitative effect of DRS effect on F1 aerodynamics is reported on the following image. The red colors identify a high pressure region while the blue one a low pressure area.
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(pressure difference when DRS is opened or closed. Source- https://www.presticebdt.com/)
When the DRS system is activated, the high pressure on the upper profiles greatly declines. The reduced pressure means a reduced downforce and drag. By enabling the DRS system, a F1 car can have over 10 km/h gain. However, the overall impact of DRS on car performance are greatly influenced by the profile chosen as main wing. For instance, when low angle of attacks and low downforce profiles are used , also the effectiveness of the DRS system is reduced.
DIFFUSER
The diffuser is an area of bodywork at the rear of the car and the air flowing below the car, exits through the diffuser on the rear of the car. Although wings and diffusers work similarly, they are based on different concepts. A diffuser serves to eject air out from the underside of the car. This pulling action increases the velocity of the air below the car, so that the more slowly moving air above the car will push the car into the ground. The suction effect is a result of Bernoulli's equation, which states that where speed of the fluid is higher, pressure must be lower. Therefore the pressure below the race car must be lower than the pressure at the outlet since the speed of the air below the race car will be higher than the speed of the air at the outlet.
The diffuser in itself doesn't produce a reduction in pressure. The role of the diffuser is to expand the flow from underneath the car to the rear, decrease the flow's velocity from inlet of the diffuser to outlet (so that at the outlet the flow velocity is similar to the free stream velocity), in turn produce a pressure potential, which will accelerate the flow underneath the car resulting in reduced pressure and as such, a desired increased downforce generation.
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(Source- https://www.racecar-engineering.com/)
The addition of the vertical ‘fences’ to a diffuser help to optimize the diffusers efficiency by ensuring that the air is only drawn only from the underbody and does not spill in from the upper body surfaces.
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(Pressure on the underside of a diffuser. Source-- https://www.racecar-engineering.com/)
shows the pressure coefficient of a generic diffuser design, with blue representing lowest pressure areas and red highest pressure. This clearly illustrates the reduction in pressure at the throat area as the velocity increases and the subsequent reduction in pressure for the underfloor as the diffuser sucks the car to the ground.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. https://thegsaljournal.com/2020/06/28/aerodynamics-in-formula-1/
2. https://f1chronicle.com/how-does-a-formula-1-car-work/
3. https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/47527705#:~:text=To%20put%20this%20into%20perspective,as%20much%20downforce%20as%20possible.
4. http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/downforce.html
5. https://www.totalsimulation.co.uk/secrets-formula-1-part-3-role-front-wing/
6. https://www.presticebdt.com/the-aerodynamics-of-f1-rear-wing-cfd-explained/#:~:text=The%20rear%20wing%20of%20a%20F1%20generates%20about%20~10%25%20less,wheels%20interaction%20with%20the%20flow.
7. https://www.presticebdt.com/how-f1-drs-works-the-aerodynamics-of-formula-one-drs-explained/
8. https://www.f1technical.net/articles/9
9. www.formula1-dictionary.net
10. https://www.racecar-engineering.com/tech-explained/diffusers-engineering-basics-aerodynamics/
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softpinkscribbles · 1 year
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frutiger cross section - my robot ipony oc & how she works 🤖
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