Model Engineering in the 21st Century

[Jasonb]

Plenty of people putting new modern and fairly cheap controls onto old CNC machines as the rest is still good and getting good results with them, look at Centroid or Massso. Not much different to replacing the treadle or overhead belt drive on an 19th c lathe with 3-phase motor and VFD.

 

[minh-thanh]

model engineering in the 21st century is this: iron lathes and mills made in the 19th century still work perfectly well, anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

I agree with you . I like to encourage people to get involved in model engine building, discover new things, new methods, new approaches., new adventures...
But it depends on many things such as knowledge, experience, time... and most importantly, money ,. Many, many things
To me, there aren't any standards, orientations... for homemade engines. I try to do the best I can and I'm satisfied with the results I achieve .

 

[petertha]

Or just go direct to metal by DMLS like this one that we had done a few months ago. 3D file to print bureau and part comes back two weeks later.

Can you share the name of the firm & approximate cost? Or PM if you prefer that route. I'm thinking of getting some header stacks done. Filling & bending & TIG-ing or brazing sounds fun & all & I may still go that route, but it would be nice to have printing $ reference in the back pocket.

 

[timo_gross]

model engineering in the 21st century is this: iron lathes and mills made in the 19th century still work perfectly well, anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

That is the charm of the obsolescence: Production equipment becomes obsolete and then can find its way into hands of hobbyists
My milling machine is made in 2003, I probalby would not have bought a new one.
I usually still find spare parts for it, because it is not yet "out of support". (parts cost an arm and a leg though, true!).
As stated by Jasonb, a lot of obsolete CNC equipment nowadays can be fixed, using more recent non original spares. The technology is far more accessible than it was 20 years ago. To keep obsolete equipment running is not worth it for the professionals. This opens opportunities for the hobby.
Even most of the 19th century "perfectly well working" iron mills and lathes are only there, because they became obsolete (and because of this affordable) at some point in time.
I would guess that most of the hobby shop equipment actually is from the 20th century with a lot of equipment left behind, when production moved on to computerized production, then moved on to foreign countries.

Even a horse carrieage from the 19th century will probably use a horse from the 21st century and at some point in time they started putting engines on the things.
Crazy people even started making small models of such engines, which do nothing else than beeing there, isn*t that weird?

And still you find people who enjoy 19th century lathes, metal planers as well as horse carrieages.

Greetings Timo

 

[Bazzer]

Interesting to see the dies for the waxes in that video Barry, My first IC was an Irvine Sport 40 in one of Jim Morley's Bell 47G choppers.

I fly fairly regularly with Peter Halman who was the development engineer at Irvines, he is very knowledgeable.

So you are pretty good at soldering as well as machining if done a Morley 47G, I seem to remember that the tail boom was made up of soldered piano wire, looked very effective from what I remember.

 

[Bazzer]

Can you share the name of the firm & approximate cost? Or PM if you prefer that route. I'm thinking of getting some header stacks done. Filling & bending & TIG-ing or brazing sounds fun & all & I may still go that route, but it would be nice to have printing $ reference in the back pocket.

The company is a UK company/bureau but he struggled to do more (I think his sub contractor went bust).

I am now working witha University on a very inclusive project and will get my parts FOC.

The best company to start off getting quotes from is Shapeways 3D Printing Service Online they have top quality machines and you can get more or less instant quotes for your part.

 

[Bazzer]

model engineering in the 21st century is this: iron lathes and mills made in the 19th century still work perfectly well, anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

I am not sure that I agree with you on the 10 year old obsolescence of computers.

Dedicate a computer to a single task and don't have it connected to the internet and it will give you amazing service for decades, I know because I am doing it.

 

[Jasonb]

Yes the Bell 47G was a lot different to todays RTF offerings and the tail as you say was supplied as bent pianowire that had to be bound with fuse wire at each joint and soldered. It was actually this heli that started me on the slippery slope as the work that had to be done prompted my Dad to buy me a Unimat 3 as I was 15 or 16 at the time.

 

[Bazzer]

Yes the Bell 47G was a lot different to todays RTF offerings and the tail as you say was supplied as bent pianowire that had to be bound with fuse wire at each joint and soldered. It was actually this heli that started me on the slippery slope as the work that had to be done prompted my Dad to buy me a Unimat 3 as I was 15 or 16 at the time.

I remember you saying that your first lathe was a Unimat 3, blimey that was a slippery slope that your Dad set you down.

The chap who I knew that built a Morley 47G had a Myford 7, this was back in the late 70's.

Do you still have the Unimat? I have one and just today I have had a PeWe tools Aaa tool post delivered, I have Aaa on the Compact 5 and it is nice.

 

[Jasonb]

Yes I've still got the U3, I had the drill/mill attachment though only one motor works now, does not really get used. I made a 4 way toolpost for mine Did some on the U3 and some at school in metal work class. I did make my first steam engine on it, a Stuart 10V

 

[william_b_noble]

model engineering in the 21st century is this: iron lathes and mills made in the 19th century still work perfectly well, anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

That's a bit of an exaggeration, if the mechanisms are good, it's not hard to retrofit the control system. Oftentimes though, the mechanical stuff is also gravity worn

 

[mcostello]

I personally know of a company that uses a 300,000 ton stamping press. 5,000 gallon hydraulic reservoir x 3 tanks= 15,000 gallons. 3 stories above ground and 3 stories below ground. What does it use for an operating system? DOS 3.1! Presses out all of a car panels, 2 doors, trunk and hood etc. all with 1 stroke. When it hits it can be felt in the ground 1/4 mile away in the guard shack and the press is in the back of the very big building.

 

[Bazzer]

I personally know of a company that uses a 300,000 ton stamping press. 5,000 gallon hydraulic reservoir x 3 tanks= 15,000 gallons. 3 stories above ground and 3 stories below ground. What does it use for an operating system? DOS 3.1! Presses out all of a car panels, 2 doors, trunk and hood etc. all with 1 stroke. When it hits it can be felt in the ground 1/4 mile away in the guard shack and the press is in the back of the very big building.

DOS on a dedicated computer is very reliable as your stamping press proves.

If you only want to run one application at a time then DOS does great.

 

[GreenTwin]

There is an interesting story, I think it was in Scientific American, about the original US air traffic control system, and how they kept nursing it along over the years (they may still use much of it; not sure).
Over time, I think few understood how it worked, and upgrading was difficult or impossible.
They resorted to downloading data, processing it, and then feeding it back into the sytem, to improve processing times.
Most interesting story.

One city in Texas would have a big football game every year, and lots of folks would fly in for the game.
So many folks flew in that the air traffic control screen in that area would become overloaded, and suddenly go blank.

.

 

[bluejets]

anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

Perhaps you would like to elaborate on this as to why any modern day computer system or microcontroller could not be adapted to suit whatever the previous application was and possibly do a better job much more quickly.

 

[minh-thanh]

Many, many people come to the hobby of building homemade engines with different technical backgrounds, there are many people who don't even have any knowledge or experience in mechanics, or engines..and many other things. such as technical drawing, ...and ....
So " Model Engineering in the 21st Century "
If that's the goal for someone, a small group of a few people: it's ok
But to become a goal for most people, it will probably never be achieved
I can design in 3D, but it's really a long way from reaching a relatively professional level - 5 or 10 years from now or never !?
The best way for now, I think, is that we should do better than what we did in the forum - Because the forum is where most people go when they need information or help....

 

[GreenTwin]

anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

I have used personal computers ever since they started to become popular (for me since about 1986, or just as the PC clones came out on the market).

I would have to agree with peter's statement, because for a number of reasons, PC's really don't hold up very well over time.
I have had hard drive failures, lots of memory failures, software upgrade issues, speed issues, etc.

I probably average a computer failure every three years minimum.
There is no sense repairing them; they just get tossed on the heap, or retired if the relative speed or graphics gets too slow for modern software.

I also agree with bluejets, and don't think there is any contradition, when he says "any modern day computer system or microcontroller could be adapted to suit whatever the previous application was and possibly do a better job much more quickly".
Perhaps not "any", but certainly "many".

I see it every day in industry, with PLC systems, where it is easier and less expensive to replace an entire PLC system (hardware and software) across a large facility, rather than try to upgrade or repair a 10 year old system.
Huges masses of copper wire get replaced with a single fiber-bundle cable.

Same with power distribution relays.
The big electrical manufacturers generally only support their electronics for so many years, and then you can no longer get parts, so you replace the entire relay.

For medium voltage power distribution equipment, some of the switchgear designs that I specified in 1985 are so good that they are still available and in general use today. Eaton/Westinghouse medium voltage equipment has changed little over the years.
The relays for medium voltage equipment have become very sophisticated, and now can easily communicate over ethernet.

Some folks are very into applying hardware/software to machine tools; the DRO being one application, and the CNC being another.
I guess you have to pick which methods you want to get involved in.
I prefer a manual lathe and mill, with a poor-man's DRO in the form of $20.00 vernier calipers with digital readout strapped on where most needed, such as on the horizontal axis of the lathe carriage.
If my DRO quits working, I toss it, grab another off the shelf, and am back cutting metal again in about 1 minute, for $20.00.

If I had not invested in a full-blown foundry, I probably would have invested in a good DRO for the lathe and mill.
There is only so much money I have available that has to be spread around my broad approach to the model engine the hobby, and so I can get by with manual machine tools such as Grizzly-made, but can't really cut corners on the foundry equipment.
I would like a nice mill, but I can get by with my Grizzly.

The micro-controllers for kiln control are very nice, and I have one of those.
It is difficult to heat treat aluminum castings without accurate heat control.

Luckily, gray iron castings, if made correctly, don't need any sort of heat treatment, at least as far as obtaining good machinability.

.

 

[ShopShoe]

So........

Back to the main title of this thread.

The main thought I have is that as systems evolve the options increase and those who become a "model engineer" today may be more different one from another than in the past.

I think that what is important is that we enjoy the full range of things being done and not get hung up on how we or those in the past used to do it.

I am reminded of an old friend of mine who became a TV cameraman in the early 1950s who had to get a job as a radio announcer first, because that is where the cameramen he was to work with started their careers, before TV.

And I defintely agree that this is a hobby and should be fun. The only audience that really matters is the hobbiest himself or herself.

--ShopShoe

 

[Toymaker]

model engineering in the 21st century is this: iron lathes and mills made in the 19th century still work perfectly well, anything with a computer over 10 years old is obsolete, unmaintainable or unrepairable, and is pretty much useless.

Maybe we need to qualify the above statement concerning computers just a little. I run both my CNC lathe and CNC Mill using old Dell Optiplex desktops; the lathe uses a Optiplex 780 and the mill is running on an Optiplex 7020. The newer 7020 just turned 10 years old this year, and the 780 is 15 years old. They both run Windows 7 and Mach3 using the parallel printer port as the machine interface. Even the old 780 is much faster than what is needed to run Mach3.

You're right about being obsolete, but that makes them very inexpensive to purchase; they're so cheap, when they do die, I just buy a replacement rather than attempt to make repairs.

 

[Shopgeezer]

I suppose I represent those of us who come to this hobby from non-technical backgrounds. I have always been fascinated by anything with gears and motors. As a kid I tore apart toasters and radios to see how they worked. But university and married life sent me in other directions. Retirement has allowed me to return to tinkering. As a computer nerd I love 3D printing. I bought a lathe and mill and am thoroughly enjoying the adventure of learning how to use them. I will never be anything but a wannabe machinist but I have two steam engines under my belt and am looking forward to starting a simple gas engine. Since I started with no knowledge or experience every operation on the lathe and mill is a learning experience. Blondihacks and I have been going pretty steady. The constant mental challenge is a good antidote to my steadily dimming brain. Our recent trip to Egypt showed us the ancient belief that burying all manner of grave goods with the Pharaoh allowed him to use them in the afterlife. I’ll have to get the family to bury me with the lathe and mill so I can get my next engine finished.