Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Looks like stuff I would build when I was a kid.
This is very satisfying.
Please post more pictures of your "work", I am really enjoying them.
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It doesn't provide anything constructive and reflects badly on you.
Why don't you put down others on this forum who use nothing more than duct tape and cardboard to mod their cars? How about the pie tin and coroplast crowd? Are zip ties allowed?
Suffice it to say, I do what you do on a daily basis and more. But I do so to a level that is commensurate with professionals in the respective trades. I was working in an autobody shop at age 12 in the days before bondo was a respected material and consequently I learned hammer and dolly techniques and stretching and shrinking and leading. I gas weld, I stick weld, I MIG weld and I TIG weld. My welds are still to be found on autos, bikes and light aircraft as well as nuclear vacuum tubes and high pressure boilers. I regularly weld in steel, stainless, aluminum and titanium. Are you capable of mirror TIG welding a back shielded stainless tube/plate joint that will be visibly, ultrasonically and occasionally X-ray inspected? If you can, I know a project engineer at Fermi Labs who has just fired the third guy who said he could do so.
These are just some of the skills I had gathered by the time I was a 19 yr old and had completed a certificate at the local junior college in metal working trades. I continued to work in the technical trades even as I finished my engineering degrees and licensing and was often working in those dual capacities. I just enjoy building and crafting.
But after years of training and experience and currently performing prototype design and development for various companies and individuals, the process that amazes me the most is still the garage inventor who builds to the level that something is actually working. I have seen devices brought to me made up of an old bread box and stereo/phone components that actually worked! It ended up being developed and produced and making it into medical imaging departments in two dozen hospitals before I left the project. I just finished a consultation and redesign of a camping implement brought to me by a couple who are outdoor enthusiasts. The item they brought me was made largely of beer cans and coat hanger wire. I kid you not! But, it worked and proved the point. After redesign and a proper production ready prototype they have a manufacturing concern lined up and a possible shelf space in REI for their device.
I am still a big fan of the garage inventor and the process of turning ideas into hardware. I applaud soulcrusher, pgfpro as well as yourself, for contributing to the one area of ecomodder that has not been well explored - engine design and development. People will say the internal combustion engine(ICE) is already well developed and there is nothing left to gain, but I beg to differ. A quick look at the heat flow through an engine shows very clearly that most of the thermal energy is still wasted. Your work with turbo diesels probes capturing the lost energy in the exhaust stream. Soulcrusher is attempting a system that will reduce wasted energy upstream. Pgfpro is doing both.
At some point, driving techniques, mass reduction and aerodynamic drag reductions reach their limits. At that point , we start looking for savings in rolling reduction, friction loss elimination and reducing engine losses. Of course the all electric guys are going to point out the advantages of dumping the ICE all together, but that is another discussion all together.