ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Tuesday 26 October 2021

CYLINDER.

I am having endless fun. I have been playing with a small engine design. It's a two stroke with a double acting piston in a glass cylinder. I do the modelling in FreeCAD then export as an Obj. file and import into Blender for assembly and rendering. There's no real need to other than FreeCAD can't render proper and I like pretty pictures and colouring in.

I'm using Blender3 Alpha with the Cycles X render engine. It is not that stable but there again it's a development release two steps away from being spot on. I did get one Cycles X render with eight hundred and fifty samples then it wouldn't play nicely again.

This took about a minute and a half to render in CyclesX, unfortunately the HDR lighting was really nasty so I changed it and when I came to render again I couldn't get anything but the old Cycles render engine. 

I said. " Well I'll be away to the foot of my Grandma's stairs."


These were re-lit and took seven minutes plus a bit a piece for the same number of samples. Not bad for an old 900 or thereabouts NVIDIA GPU. I'll see if Santa can't cough up for a bigger one. I don't need a state of the art quad thingy graphics processor as the wait gives me time for a roll up and a think about the meaning of life. I only have a laptop and haven't the room for a proper machine so I can't go too silly. I've also got to find my Arctic Paste to smear on the coolers as GPUs generate some serious heat. I had a big computer clean up a few weeks ago and for the life of me couldn't recall which safe place I'd popped it in. Arctic Paste works well but only lasts a couple of years. I blame global warming or whatever the numb nuts are calling it this week. 

The ring with the slot in is the exhaust, it needs a manifold and pipe adding. The end caps need a way of getting petrol mixture into the top and as it compresses a pipe connecting it via a couple of clack valves to the bottom where it will have a spark plug. Some end cap modification will be required, they need something as they a boring. The engine will be upside down for no reason other than I fancy having guide brackets on top of the cylinder supporting plate and connecting rods running from them to a couple of crank pins or big ends. I have decided that the cylinder is far too short. The glass is 20mm x 2mm wall Pyrex or more than likely a Chinese borosilicate glass rip off Pyllex I guess. The grey bits will be machined from ductile iron as it remains dimensionally stable at the sort of temperatures likely to be experienced, I can't imagine the cylinder getting to much more than 500°C, if that, but will have a check. Sealing will be silicon rubber, it will stand dogs abuse.


Next week Glasgow is hosting something called Crap 26. It's all about taxing plebs to within an inch of penury but more importantly it will provide a wonderful stage for virtue signalling by mega bucks hippy folk that should have grown up thirty years ago.

 I'm expecting endless amusement. Most delegates have wisely decided to stop at Gleneagles or Edinburgh. They have found a fleet of electric cars to ferry them backwards and forwards but located only one charger so have had to hire in a number of diesel gensets. It gets funnier, NHS Scotland are cancelling all but emergency or critical appointments as they don't want the delegates held up in traffic. I suspect that all the domestic rubbish will be shoved up side streets in time as the bin men are currently on strike. Glasgow council have a fleet of a hundred or so electric vans parked up unused, their excuse is Batflu, no testing and believe it or not Thatcher. She's been dead for decades. For fucks sake even Vegans can work a switch and two pedals. I guess the batteries in them will be buggered by now, probably for the best, I can't imagine the great and good sitting in the back of a van all the way from Gleneagles to Glasgow. I have noticed that the Glen Devon road and the A91 have had some resurfacing work done so as not to jolt the delegates delicate bums.

Have fun.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent. You really have mastered FreeCAD and Blender.

    Significant that the mass media never seem to investigate what will happen with millions of spent batteries or the cost of replacing them every few years.

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    1. John, I have a long way to go, if I ever finish this it would be fun to animate it.
      For as long as I can remember the world has been but ten short years from becoming uninhabitable.
      Spent batteries, windmill blades and assuming green energy is obtainable will it ever be viable and reliable without nuclear. I doubt it but never mind it makes a select few very rich.

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  2. Oh that Glasgow thing isn't over and done with then. I keep hearing about we're doing nothing and it's all our fault and assumed it must be on.

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    1. Rachel, it hasn't even started. I will have to turn the radio off from Monday.

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