#cad engineer

[bonebrokebuddy]

@kodedgeekthings eyo you mentioned wanting a dpxdc prompt for Howard, Batman’s mechanic!

Harold misses fixing toys for kids and in his off hours has taken up the habit of answering questions on forums about machining, electrical, engineering, mechanics, and mechanical design that are often frequented by students.

One day, he comes across a request by a college student who is trying to assemble his own car out of scrap he bought from a local wrecking yard.

Ghostly_Boy states that he has previous experience in machining and can make replacements for broken or too-damaged parts if need be, but he doesn’t know where to start and what specific requirements he needs to reach to ensure it’s street legal.

Harold willing to help, he answers a few of Ghostly Boy’s clarifying questions:

- Great questions!

It’s good to note that if you’re not careful, fixing or making your own car from parts can be a moneysink and can cost you more than a brand new vehicle. - That being said, your first major step to ensuring you can drive the car is to get the title of the body/frame of the car you plan to build. It’ll have the VIN on a plate welded to the frame usually near the lower edge of the windshield wipers on the drivers side. It’s how the DMV identifies vehicles for licensing.

- Generally, you’ll at first get a “wreck out” title that shows the vehicle is listed as a total loss, but if you can assemble the parts for the car with that frame, the DMV can check if it’s properly running and road worthy & license for you to use it on public roads if you’ve done the proper paperwork.

- Once that is done, it’s largely a case of getting the right parts and assembling them. Depending on how much you have to repair, you could be taking on a task that could give a challenge to even a seasoned mechanic. There may be additional paperwork depending on what exactly you need to repair, like the breaks, lights, steering, etc.

- If you want to build the car entirely from scratch, chassis and all, that’s an entirely different story with a much more complicated list of requirements to make it street legal, so getting a frame from a junkyard is a great first step!

- Make sure to keep all bills of sale, junkyard receipts, invoices and manufacturers’ certificates on any major parts you used in building the vehicle to prove its road worthy to the DMV when it’s complete!

Harold doesn’t always answer first but over time he’s found the adventures of this kid amusing and keeps up with it.

Ghostly_Boy keeps the forum updated with his progress:

The kid spontaneously deciding to scrap the wiring system and make his own in a span of 3 days, leaving experienced mechanics on the forum practically screaming at the kid for his updates showing him using random wires he salvaged and pigtailing them together to get the length of wire he needed.

Mixing not only multiple types of wires but ones that didn’t have the protection needed for auto use. DIY-ing his own relay and fuses he didn’t have and connecting the wrong grounds and switches. And planning on leaving the wires unwrapped and loose.

Leaving Ghost to promptly redo the wiring, correctly this time, within 78 hours.

Making a repair of a massive rusted hole on the passenger side by the bumper and the front tire via cutting 1/2in past the rust, grinding it pretty and clean, tac & seam welding the vintage aluminum housing material of a toaster to cover the hole to the response of Harold and many others in the forum just going “… I guess that would work?”

Harold and many others telling the kid that this “ectoplasm” material wasn’t cleared through the EPA’s Clear Air Act and could be illegal to drive with it as it’s fuel source unless he got the emissions tested & the center of gravity of the car adjusted to have the center of gravity a gas car has, it wouldn’t pass Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Nor would the previously untested on material make it easy or quick to get an Emissions testing certificate. Best to just stick with gas.

Removing what he thought was a “skid plate” that turned out to be another rusted out section on the frame on the bottom of his car and repairing it with steel he salvaged from an old medical table he had laying around. (To the multiple slightly confused commenters asking how Ghost had a spare medical table, he replied, “eh, my folks visit every so often and they’ve been giving me things they’re clearing out of the house so they can move closer to my older sister. I just so happened to get the ye olde medical table. They’re an odd couple of folks but that’s why I love them.”)

People just crying at the kid to go to rockauto.com and just buy the damn parts he needs for his car. (A good resource btw)

The kid kept cutting corners to save cash but through the badgering of Harold and many others that he actually would have to spend money to make this car be safe to drive in, he finally got it completed.

Ghost’s post of him leaving DMV waving the updated title to the car in its envelope in the air, titled, “THE DMV FINALLY SAID IT WASN’T A FIRE HAZARD! ONLY TOOK 2 YEARS! THANKS EVERYONE!” Got the most amount of responses he’d ever had with congratulations from lurkers and previous commenters.

Over the course of those two years, Danny learned how to draw his own wiring diagrams, properly solder and weld, and learning to actually plan out his projects so he got it right at least the fifth time instead of the 20th. Not bad for a kid that went straight from graduating high school with a 1.5GPA to construction jobs.

But after finally getting the car approved, Ghostly_Boy returns to the forum with a new problem. Lamenting that his parents keep coming over and “modifying” his car to no longer make it street legal.

At this point, about half of the answers to the submission think it’s either a joke project taken very, very seriously with a good chunk of money behind it, or a kid with parents that have narrowly avoided falling completely down the mad scientist rogue rabbit hole.

After all, what sort of parent would think that the DMV would approve to “anti-ghost missiles” being attached to the outer body of the car? Either way, the submissions always had video attached showing a demonstration, proving that Ghost wasn’t just completely yanking their chain. And a good amount of money would have to be sunken in to not only pay for the fines Ghostly continued to get from the additions to his car, but to actually manufacture and make a unique working product for each plea for help request.

Harold is not only taking notes on some of these defense measures but also decides to bring up the boy to Alfred. Intrigued, they together keep an eye on Ghostly_Boy. Bruce may be their employer, but they can handle a case or two on their own.

- I wanted Danny to try to make smth for himself now that he doesn’t have access to his parent’s lab anymore but he also doesn’t have access to ectoplasm so he’s fairly unfamiliar how to wire things Not for ectoplasmic standards.

Also I wanted to make a prompt where Danny had a good relationship with his parents & went into a fairly realistic job after high school with his fairly bad GPA so he’s saving up for a technical school via construction jobs as he doesn’t like the idea of working fast food for understandable reasons.

[royalmagiciangirl]

Lucky and Sage are here to emotionally support me while I study for my test. The topic right now is additive manufacturing of polymeres.

It might sound ridiculous but it helps me remember what I need to learn when I explain it to them.

@paleopinesofficial thank you for the best study companions ever!

[polymerfan]

@bisexual-engineer-guy this is the meme lmao

[stone-cold-groove]

The light pen is mightier than the sword.

[vrushtistudying]

2/13/25

things I did today:

finished up this Super Bowl Ad Homework (it was really easy and kind of boring)

read for around forty five minutes, whenever I could (almost at 50% of this long ass book)

speaking of, studied for the protein synthesis quiz for like an hour and a half, might do another half an hour as of 11:00 pm

did a bunch of hardware stuff for my robotics team

I did my presentation for my science project (it's about environmental oncology, pleaseeee rb or something if you wanna hear more about it), I think I did good on it. my friend said it made half-sense to her, so that's more than enough.

bonded with the future CTO of my team??? idk

need to sit down and structure the next act of my book

good things today:

got confused in bio class, but I fixed it when I studied for the quiz tmrw

absolutely dominated in APHUG due to my extensive history and political nerdiness, it was SO fun, we were talking about supranational organizations

drank matcha. ended up not having milk, so I had it in a little espresso shot cup and it actually tasted really good.

hung out with my baby sister, she's actually half-ok with writing now but she's also four

FINALLY CONVINCED MY PARENTS TO WATCH FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER WITH ME IN HONOR OF CAPTAIN AMERICA BRAVE NEW WORLD (I am being queer baited, yes, but still)

had ice cream

also some views from my backyard. winter may nearly out-do spring in the mid-atlantic this year. that is, however, if we manage to avoid synchronous online schooling.

[foldmorepaper]

[bluehexagone]

@yellydany’s oc, Danzil!

[0guyboom]

Still working even though not making much progress, currently I’m working on things to increase precision in the parts themselves as I haven’t thought of any ways to improve the mechanics.

The main problem I’m having is that small deflections in the part where the leg attaches to the driver results in significant problems in the knee area. I have been able to improve this with precision but I think to make it work well I think I need to redesign something to hold the knee joint parallel

I’m continuing to make small improvements so hopefully I come up with something soon!

[baphomatth]

That's the project I'm doing for school, it was supposed to be a group project, but I said fuck it, and where other choose simple things, I decided to make a prosthesis of the hardest part of the body cause I'm crazy like that.

It does not have a thumb yet, I need to find a way to do it, the motors inside take too much space.

[thebluevipersden]

YRSA (my Star Wars OC) ⚙️

Let me introduce you to my OC in the Star Wars universe! She is Yrsa, a curious young engineer girl, who deeply resonates with nature and machines. About her tale in a nutshell: As a young child, Yrsa lived in a workshop and was surrounded by all kinds of mechanisms and gadgets, learning a lot of the necessary robotics from her father, who was an ambitious engineer. Later they had to flee their home from the wrath of the empire and crashed on an uninhabited planet while escaping. Yrsa was left alone at a very young age and was stranded there. She befriended in the woods with her animal companion, Cog, the acklay. Many years later, Cad Bane turns her life upside down, when he is sent after her to capture the girl. In her future Yrsa must leave her beloved forest and will live on Lower Coruscant, as an outcast traveling engineer. After the wilderness, she'll have to survive in the urban jungle. During her journey she'll even cross her path with an unexpected new ally, who comes from the shadows in a shroud of mystery... 😎 Then the little lady's life will again reach a turning point.

Yrsa's adventure started in this fanfiction: Tales of the Flame and the Rain | AO3 Thanks to my writing partner @river-mort and @deepbluespace4 for the enormous help and motivation with our conversations. I love you, guys! I also send a big hug those who have read or liked my fic so far. 💚

[strike-another-match]

since i was a little girl i wanted to grow up to be the stranger on stack overflow that got sent company secrets by people who were desperate to fix some issue at work that was well above their level, i am happy to have achieved it. the only benefit is feeling powerful

[anonymusbosch]

when I'm at work and someone asks me how I know that <subsystem component> sometimes does <behavior>:

[drysauce]

omfg autocad threw me back to the hellhole that was first year technical drawing

it was a nice break from paper drawings (yeah i still don't know why we had to do them but oh well) but still oh my god. agony.

(autodesk inventor is pretty goated tho i do like it heehee models go brr)

you know what's interesting, i also had technical drawing on my first year and it was actually the only class for which i had to make all the drawings on paper lol

because starting with the second semester for all my project classes we have been using either autocad or a different autodesk graphic program (like Civil3D for railways and roads projects or Revit for the house project if someone wanted a higher grade)

[yandere-wishes]

I think the fun part about being lonely is that you only really notice it at 4:00 am at your cousin's house when you're having a metaphorical conversation with her unborn daughter...

[bizarremachinist]

Capstone #6: Solid

<-<- FIRST || <- PREV || NEXT ->

CAD is nearly done, and the design is 95% there. There's still some improvements to be made. Big 'ol hand to our CAD team especially for bringing this to life. Lets explore under the cut

There's 2 main parts of this thing. The main body has the fans and wheels. The gantry on top does all the doodling. Let's pop the top off.

The cover and walls are purely aesthetic and keeps the dust out. Originally the cover is held on using snap buttons, but that's been changed to the tiniest magnets pocket change can buy. The base plate is made from thin wood, or we've been exploring carbon fiber (but that's proven to be mad expensive for basically no gain. Like 400+$ expensive).

The wheels are servos, the fans sit side by side and run off wall outlet power. (Try making these drone motors that normally run off batteries, and make them run off a wall outlet. Sounds easy right? Good luck. It's been a time doing it. They eat something like 12-16v at 40-60+ amps... *each*). It's got tiny nubs on the bottom to stabilize it, because with only 2 wheels, it's going to want to rock side to side. It'll have some distance sensors on the sides to find where it is on the wall, and an accelerometer to find how it's tilted. I'm personally a little worried the vibrations from the fans will make the accelerometer unreliable, but we'll find out about that later. The whole thing will be controlled by an Arduino Mega.

Smooving over to the gantry, both axis will be on rails purchased from Igus. The rails are made from hard anodized aluminum, while the carriages are made from diecast zinc and some slippery bearing plastic. It's then pulled around by timing belts and steppers. We modified both axis a tad by reducing the rail size to the smallest ones Igus offers, and giving the horizontal axis 2 rails for more stability (The bearing situation on the timing belts were improved too)

The printer head uses an electro-magnet to pull the pen down. There are guide pins with springs to, well, guide and spring return the head. There are also stop screws that set the maximum engagement and disengagement. (The travel distance is kinda exaggerated here tho. The actual travel distance will be as little as possible. Like 3-4mm)

All in all, the bot body is something like 300 x 500mm, 60mm thick (+ 55mm for the fan tails), with a print area of 150 x 150mm. We've tried to cut as much weight as possible, and are looking at about 1.2kg or a little lighter than a small toaster

As a bonus pic, here's an early concept. This one uses a lead screw for the X, and a shaft and timing belt for the Y. If you're wondering what stops the axis from pivoting, it would have been some gibs located behind both axis. Commonly used on dovetails, a gib is when you intentionally design in a large gap between your mating surfaces, and shove a thin plate in there with setscrews to take up the slack. Look at the ways of basically any milling machine or lathe, and chances are you'll see one!