Filler

I have an obsession with knowing how to do things. I need to know how things work. And occasionally I get lost in reality.

Years ago, I was working for Cray Research, Inc. We worried about cycles and memory access times. The unit time of accessing memory was a cycle and was 80 ns. I.e., freaking fast.

I became interested in photography. My mentor was already doing some spectacular photography, but I believe I’ve become better than him.

One of the ways I became better was in the concepts of studio lighting. I purchased and was using studio flash, getting good results.

The issue? How the heck did we sync the strobe with the camera? The camera fires, and the flash goes off. There is a propagation delay before the signal reaches the primary light and it fires. There is more delay while the light travels to the next light; there is still more delay before that light can fire. How can this work?

The answer was simple: the real world isn’t the digital world. The lens would be open for 16.6 us. This is 16,600 ms, or 16,600,000 ns. The only requirement was that the flash go off a some point while the lens was fully open. The camera wouldn’t initiate the flash until the lens was fully open, so it was never an issue.

I didn’t wrap my head around reality; I was working in my model of reality. I was wrong.

The Circle

I want to make something. What I would like to make is a steam engine.

To make a steam engine, I need a machine shop. I’ve purchased that. I also need to learn how to use all the machines in my shop. I’ve made a good start at that.

I also require castings for the steam engine. To get castings, I need to purchase or make them. To make a casting, I need to first make a pattern. Once I have made a pattern, I need to “ram” it up, and then cast it.

To make a pattern, I have to design the pattern and then construct it. To construct patterns, I require good woodworking skills and good wood for pattern making. Pine and most common hardwoods are not going to cut it. I’m working on getting those skills.

The pattern design is also a skill; I understand it, but I’m not good at it. CAD can make it easier.

Once I have the design, I need to construct it. This is pattern making, and I don’t have the woodworking skills to do it. But I can CNC or 3D print my patterns.

To get better at woodworking, I have to practice. To practice, I need space. The space has to be heated. I can handle working during the summer; I can no longer handle working in subfreezing weather.

The workshop will be in the first floor of “the hut”. The hut needs to be finished, insulated, and powered. This is a good time to learn about off-grid power systems, like solar. The solar system won’t be enough for this area, so what if I can add supplemental power from a genset? I don’t like the sound of internal combustion engines, but a steam engine? That sounds good to me.

So I want to make a steam engine.

Since I’ve created a cyclic tree, maybe I can break it with something? How about learning to make 3D printed patterns? I’m still doing all the design work, but now I can have a machine turn it into a physical item.

I liked my toy 3D printer, but it was a kit that wasn’t good, and it was never accurate enough. I was never able to build pieces that could fit together. It was retired. But new 3D printers are plug and play, which is what I want. I would rather not build them and tweak them physically; I want to use them to create physical objects.

And look at this, there is a set of modular 3D prints that can be linked together to create a pattern for a flask. The thing that holds the sand that patterns are rammed into. This means I can actually have sturdy flasks that won’t burn.

But all of this requires some skill in CAD. I have years of experience doing 3D solid modeling. What I don’t have is experience in creating the blueprints for translating these models into reality. But a CNC mill would be helpful for some of that. And I have a mini-mill that I got from my father. I can convert that to a CNC machine for certain operations.

And with the ability to make standard flasks of standard sizes, I can then make molding plates for those flasks to simplify casting certain items.

I can use a 3D printer to make runners, gates, spouts, and risers to make it easy to make castings.

The cool thing is that I can make a 3D printed pattern with proper shrink rates, then cast that pattern in aluminum. The aluminum then becomes the working pattern, so we have to allow twice the shrink so the working pattern can then be used to create our final castings.

If I’m going to be making my own patterns, I will need to make core boxes. Cylinders for steam engines are complex; they have ports cast into them as well as steam passages. Which means I will need to machine or print core boxes.

But there is a minimum size that cores can be. You don’t make 1/8 in cores 2.5 inches long. What is the right size steam passage?

Well, the steam passage should be able to transfer the swept volume without ever having a velocity above 6000 ft/minute. Where did they get 6000 ft/minute? Don’t worry, they used it in the age of steam, and it was empirically tested.

What does it mean though? Well, we know the volume in in³/s. If we divide that by 6000*12 in/60s, we will know the cross-sectional area required.

The area required is equal to pi*r^2, where r is the radius of the steam passage. We can use this same area when designing the ports for the valve and cylinder.

But I’d really like to know if this value was any good. Well, the “easy” method is to run a CFD analysis of the steam flow in the engine.

This would seem to be easy, since the workflow is to build a mesh of the domain for the CFD analysis, then set the initial conditions and let someone else’s code do the work.

What the heck is a CFD “domain”? Well, that’s the part that isn’t modeled. Which means I need to make an inverse model of the steam engine parts that are important for a CFD analysis.

But that requires new skills in my CAD program.

And all of this must be done because I want to be able to build steam engines that are fractional HP in size, but big enough to do the work required.

What would it be like if I had a steam engine that was driving a hydraulic pump for a wood splitter? Would that be cool? Motors for hydraulic pumps are built around HP requirements, but steam engines produce excellent torque at low RPMs. Do we really need a 5 HP engine to drive a wood splitter?

Now, If I get a 3D printer, I can use it to print Gridfinity and multiboard systems to organize my reloading room. My reloading room is full. I can’t get to the press, and I need to get there because I require more 9 mm ammo. And I want to reload a few hundred 30-06 and 7.62×51 rounds with something for taking deer.

So having a printer is a good idea. And I know where it will go. All I need to do is throw away the three junk paper printers that are stacked there, and I’ll be good to go.

Are we having fun yet?

It has been a difficult couple of weeks here.

My mother-in-law is in an abusive marriage. When I met her suitor after my father-in-law passed, I was concerned that he was going to swindle her.

His words, actions, and use of money were all indicators of something not quite right.

As is normal, nobody on that side of the family listened to me. Her suitor wined and dined her. Took her to expensive places and, in general, did all the right things in public. But what I was hearing about the private interactions was not good.

My wife flew out to bring her mother home. Her mother got scared of what her husband would do. Decided not to come back. Wife canceled her mother’s flight back.

Mother-in-law and her husband had a loud, angry, abusive yelling match on Thursday, and Mother-in-law changed her mind and decided she needed to escape.

Since the plane ticket was gone, they packed up, got in her car, and drove here.

Mother-in-law is staying at a good friend’s house; she doesn’t like the mess that is my house.

I get one night with my wife. Then we go to breakfast; we have good conversation. Wife and MIL decide they are going to a local city to catch a movie. All good.

MIL changes her mind, which of course causes my wife to do exactly what her mother wants. They go back to the friend’s house where something went down.

Instead of figuring out options, MIL decides she needs to go home.

My wife talks to me. We agree that we need to have time to work this all out. She goes out and talks to her mother. Mother begs to go back home to her home in a state far away.

My wife can’t say “no” so instead she rushes home, grabs the suitcase she hasn’t unpacked yet, and she and my MIL are on the road.

From the time of the incident to the time my wife and MIL are back on the road, something like 45 minutes.

So my wife is a 1000+ miles away, again. My MIL has gone back to her house and her abusive husband.

You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.

It is difficult to comprehend what a piston powered steam engine is capable of doing. It is a different sort of beast than the internal combustion engine.

For those that are old, you might have grown up with a manual transmission. There is a considerable skill in learning how to balance the clutch and engine speed to get smooth motion.

This is hidden in a value we call “horse power”. Horse power is also expressed in Watts. There are 745 watts to a HP, depending on sources. Close counts in this calculation. HP and watts are a measure of work.

Consider picking up a barbell. By measuring the force required to lift it, the time it takes to lift it, and the distance moved, we can measure the power used.

Now consider that same barbell, but it is too heavy to lift even a fraction of an inch. You strain trying to lift it. You have expended energy but have no performed any work. Hence the HP and watts are zero.

Regardless, an internal combustion engine needs some type of clutch to allow the engine to run at a comfortable speed while slowly bringing a different part of the powertrain up to speed.

With a steam engine, you have full torque at every speed. They are spectacular engines at slow speeds.

This takes us to present times.

I’m using FreeCAD to create the 3D model of the engines. A side advantage of this is that I also get assemblies that allow me to check how all the parts fit together. All very nice. This has helped me identify errors in my reading of the drawings.

A simple little thing: The cylinder has a built in bracket system. This is a face used to mount the cylinder to the base and the face used to attach the steam chest. These faces are slightly offset from the bore.

Which leads to my error, times 3. The cylinder mounting holes are not on the center line of the cylinder. They are instead on the center line of the bore. The bore is offset away from the steam chest and away from the mounting holes.

My error? I’ve put those damn mounting holes in the wrong place multiple times.

In the end, I added a spreadsheet to the model. For every shared measurement between parts, I’ve put that value in the spreadsheet. This means that I can do things like change the stroke by changing one value. Sort of.

My understanding of this mechanical marvel is much improved from being able to see the parts work together.

Another thing I noticed was that all the engine plans have an assumption you will be working with castings. They expect you to hire a pattern maker to create the patterns and then have your local foundry cast them.

While I would love to make my castings from iron, I will start with making them from aluminum. And the new tools I have and new skills I have in woodworking allow me to make real patterns.

My final goal is to have master patterns and molding boards for patterns for a couple of different engines. If I can accomplish that and make a few of them, I’ll be very happy.

Next stop, learning how to be a safe boilermaker. And not the happy drink type.

Why Steam Engines

I’ve had a fascination in steam engines since my childhood. There are pictures of my brother in the museum in D.C. standing next to the drive wheels of a steam locomotive. The wheels were taller than my father.

What I didn’t realize as a child was that the actual engines were small compared to the size of the locomotive.

The engines of steam locomotives are the expansion cylinders that drive the wheels. Most of the rest of the locomotive is the boiler generates the steam for the engine.

As a child I was able to ride a steam locomotive a few times and always found them interesting.

Later I found out that steam engines are used for more than just locomotives. They were used to power tractors, steam shovels, boats, mills, and workshops. They were everywhere. It wasn’t until electric motors became cheap and plentiful that we saw the end of the steam engine.

Off Grid Use

An electric motor is used to convert power into rotational force. That power has to come from somewhere.

The most common “somewhere” is the power grid. If you are going off grid, that is not an option. It is also not an option when the grid is down.

Grid down is a common thing in these parts, it happens two or three times every year. It is so common that we do not depend on electricity for heat.

Yes, we have an oil fired furnace; no, it can’t be used without electricity. The burner unit requires power to inject the fuel and then it requires electricity to power the fans moving air through the system to warm the house.

Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow

This is used to describe a standard four-stroke engine. Each word indicates the purpose of a stroke of the piston. First the piston moves down, sucking in fuel and air; then it squeezes that fuel-air mixture; next a spark happens and the fuel-air mixture goes bang, pushing the piston down (this is the power stroke); finally the piston moves up, blowing the exhaust out of the cylinder.

There is one power stroke out of every four or one power stroke for every two revolutions of the crank.

To make this all happen, we have the camshaft. The camshaft consists of multiple lobes that push a rod upward to open a valve.

There is one lobe for each valve in an engine. For a single-cylinder engine, there are two valves.

That camshaft holds the magic timing for the valve train. It is synchronized to the crankshaft. The camshaft opens the intake valve and closes the exhaust valve at the start of the suck stroke. It closes both valves during the squeeze stroke and keeps them closed during the bag stroke. Finally, it opens the exhaust valve to allow the hot gases to escape during the push stroke.

Those camshafts are a engineering marvel.

Push, Push, Push, Push

A double acting steam engine generates power on every stroke of the piston. This is accomplished by being able to pressurize both sides of the piston, alternating between strokes.

Whereas the four stroke engine gets one power stroke in four, the double acting steam engine gets four power strokes in four.

Most steam engines use a slide valve; some use piston valves.

An internal combustion engine has the valves in the cylinder; slide and piston valve engines have an externally located valve.

There is a single passage for the steam to flow into and out of for each end of the cylinder. The slide valve moves in such a way that sometimes it is venting high-pressure steam into the cylinder, and then it vents that same passage to the exhaust port.

This single valve controls the ingress and egress of live and dead steam from the cylinder. It is very magical.

And just like that camshaft is an engineering marvel, so are these slide and piston valves.

The Rabbit Hole

A slide valve consists of three slots parallel to each other. The two outer slots lead to either end of the cylinder; the center slot leads to exhaust. The valve is shaped like an upside down square cake pan with large lips.

In the far end of the motion, the edge of the pan is between the steam passage and the exhaust passage. This allows the high pressure steam that fills the steam chest to push down on the cake pan/slide valve and flow into the exposed steam passage to one end of the cylinder.

At the same time, the center section of the pan covers both the exhaust passage and the steam passage to the other end of the cylinder, allowing the dead steam to escape down the exhaust passage.

As the valve slides in the other direction, the lip of the pan starts to cover the steam passage that had accepted the live steam. At the same time, the lip on the other side of the valve is starting to close over the other steam passage.

The size of the passages and ports, the size of the area under the valve, the size of the lips of the valve, the distance between ports all play a part in the efficient running of the engine. These have to be designed and manufactured correctly.

We can time the motion of the slide valve to the crankshaft. We can also adjust the valve so it is centered correctly. We can change the geometry of the valve without remaking it.

Which all takes me down the rabbit hole of learning about slide valves.

There are multiple textbooks, written during the age of steam, describing how the valves work and how to design them correctly.

And I haven’t even figured out what questions to ask to figure out what “wire drawing” in steam passages means and how to design the steam passages.

On the good news front, I will be able to get patterns made for everything that needs to be cast. Now to find a foundry to cast them.

I do not look this cool or this hot. More than a few years ago, I gave up on stick welding. I got tired of cussing all the time. I wish I had spent more time learning how to do it well, but I never did. I “upgraded” from a Lincoln Electric “Tombstone” to a Lincoln Electric 140HD. Got a cart and a tank of gas and went to it.

I suck at this. Today I got three of the 8 hangers welded on. That includes the breaker popping twice, because of the extension cord. I’ll get rid of the extension cord today and finish this up.

You might have heard the term “stacking dimes.” There is nothing that pretty happening here. The only thing I can say with confidence is that the hangers ring when struck with a hammer, and they show no signs of cracking off. I’m now to the point where I can get nearly consistent bacon sizzle.

I’m also going to use a different pair of glasses tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that I’m blind through the visor, and not from arc flash. Just the distance isn’t right for my normal progressives. If I tilt my head to focus, the visor window no longer has the arc in view.

Wish me luck. If this gets done, a rattle can worth of yellow paint goes on this monstrosity, and then up into the loft with it.

I am a failure at welding; the fact that it works at all is a happy accident from reasonable equipment.

Update

“How bad?” you might ask. I just picked up the magnetic right angle to weld the other side of the hanger and the hanger came with it. This is why each hanger is individually tested. Yeah, I ran a very pretty bead about 1/16 in above the root.

Yesterday was supposed to be a simple task: wield the eight hangers I made yesterday. They are simple hangers, 6×2 by 1/8, angled at the top with 2 3/8 inch holes to mount to the rafters.

The task for yesterday: dig the I-Beam out of the snow, put it on sawhorses, do a quick prep on the top surface, and then wield the eight hangers at 16 inches on center.

At the start of the day, it was 1° outside and in the machine shop. It got up to almost 20°. My office started at a toasty 50° and was up to nearly 60° by 1000.

Today it will be in the upper 20s, with snow. I’m going to try and make room for the beam in the shop and get this wielded up. If I can get this done, then I’m 90% of the way to completing the hut for the winter.

The following tasks are to install the window with my son’s help, get the rest of the hut insulated. Thats only a few wall bays and the ceiling.

The big issue is that I need to fix the wick on the KW-24 heater.

Wish me luck and I hope you are having a comfortable day.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the snowblower died. I need to replace the carb. This happened just before the skys dumped 8-12 inches of the white evil on us.

Feast time. We spent the entire day preparing, and then people showed up. Then more people showed up.

I hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

My brother-in-law is an addict. Drugs and alcohol. There is nothing he wouldn’t sell to get booze or drugs. For a while his scam was to con his sister into believing he was starving; she would order him a pizza. He would then sell slices at $2 a slice.

She bought the pizza for $25 delivered. He ate one of the pieces, sold the other 7 and got something from it.

He sold canned goods. He sold his mattress. He sold everything he was given, then begged for more. Always preying on his mother’s and sister’s sympathy. For his mom, it was cleanliness. He would con her into paying for laundry and clothes. For his sister, it was food. With his daughters, it was something else.

Of course you can sell your EBT card. My BIL sold his, many times.

I’ve been working with Grok from xAI. It seems to be better than most of the others I’ve tried. It has done a good job of helping me debug complex systems.

I wouldn’t trust it to provide instructions to pour piss out of a boot.

I was working with it for the configuration of the Amanda backup system. I’m integrating it with my Ceph cluster. While it did an “ok” job of configuring Ceph, for Amanda it was entirely wrong.

Even though it asked, and I provided version numbers, it gave instructions for a configuration method that hasn’t been used in years.

I still don’t have a working Amanda configuration, but I have ideas on how to get there.

Because I’m not a great writer, I use every tool at my disposal to write better. I asked Grok to analyze my article about Charlie.

It insisted that Charlie was still alive and that I was writing some “wish-fulfillment” fictional scenario. I told it to prove that Charlie had been murdered. It did its thing and told me that Charlie had indeed been killed on the 10th.

In the very next prompt, it again insisted that it was a “fictional fact” and that it was merely “alleged” that Charlie had been killed.

One of the things to know about AIs is that the more they need to analyze, the longer it takes and the more “expensive” it becomes. This means that they have a memory or token limit.

This leads to article truncation when it is asked to retrieve web pages.

It told me my article ended abruptly and that it was willing to help write the ending. When it was instructed to print my original article, it showed me the truncated version. When I told it to fetch the complete article, that it had to be a complete <div>, it said it had fetched the article, then proceeded to write its version of the end of the article.

When asked to provide Obama’s statement on the death of Charlie, it showed me three or for articles that only short quoted Obama, leaving out all the context.

AI is an amazing tool. It is still at the verify then verify again stage.

Story Time

I was working with a client on a Magento site. This client was a “digital agency.” They specialized in throwing up WordPress sites for $1500 or so.

They could do this by outsourcing most of the work to an Indian firm.

The CEO was up to give us a talk on using Indian outsourcing. He was very proud of himself for figuring out that these Indian tech firms will claim they can do any technical thing, even if they have no idea what they are doing. You only know if they are any good at the task after you’ve invested in the firm.

He had solved this by going to India and personally investigating a dozen different Indian tech firms before deciding on the one that actually knew how to do WordPress sites.

He had great success using them.

He had asked this same firm, “Do you do Magento?” They had answered in the affirmative. I was the unhappy recipient of their “product”.

My question to that CEO: “Did you ask them if they can do a tech thing? “Yes.” “Do Indian tech firms always say ‘yes’ to that question?” “Yes.” “Did you violate your own rule about trusting Indian tech firms?” “Yes.”

My point is that you can find an AI that does a fantastic job on a task. They might produce great results every day for a month. That doesn’t mean you can trust the next answer it gives. It is just as likely to make it up or lie to you as give you a good, correct answer.

My office chair has been failing for about a year now. The gas tube gave up the fight. The left armrest had cracked. And the entire thing had become one uncomfortable mess.

As somebody who sits in front of his computer for many hours per week, this was unacceptable. Worse, it was painful to sit for more than about an hour. After an hour, the discomfort was making it difficult to program or get other work done.

I bought a new chair. I’ve spent the last couple of hours sitting in it. There are different issues, but mostly it is me getting used to the new chair. It is nice to have my eyes at the correct level for my screens.

Auburn Duck Race

This is an event that Ally has been attending for a few years. She dresses in period garb, does a cooking demo, and sells her cookbooks. Normally I drive her out to the event, drop her and her gear off, head home, and then go and pick her up after the event.

We were both uncomfortable with her being in a crowd after what happened to Charlie, so I went along and stayed. SIG P365, two spare magazines, truck gun briefcase.

Nothing happened; we had fun, plenty of people, some book sales. I got to see one of my clients in person and met his family.

Shit Talk from Leftist

I had mentioned to Ally that the amount of Trump and right bashing on the Reddits had gone down. I spoke too soon. It is still full of hate and evil.

She’s right! Donnie started this!

J6 was the most violent thing in living memory. That’s the problem; MAGA lives in a completely different reality from what is actually going on. They don’t have the mental capacity to apply critical thinking skills, they just ride on hatred and lies.

I think I’m going to have a “speak out” day once a week.