Unusual/Interesting Engines

[myglaren]

A bit of a stretch perhaps but it does fulfil the requirement of changing something int something else, even if it isn't energy into motion.

Vortex Tube

[mickthemaverick]

A bit of a stretch perhaps but it does fulfil the requirement of changing something int something else, even if it isn't energy into motion.

Vortex Tube

Nifty bit of kit! Always makes me wonder how the inventor discovered it

[bobins]

Nifty bit of kit! Always makes me wonder how the inventor discovered it

I watched one of their videos on how to strip and rebuild one of their cold air guns. There's not a lot to one, but does anyone know if the metric system ever made it as far as America ?

[white exec]

I fell over the refusal of the US to embrace metric units (there are some professional exceptions) the other day, when trying to compare domestic air-con units, and the cooling output. On endless websites, found I was confronted with this monstrosity, the AC Ton:

"A ton is the cooling capacity of an air conditioning system. One ton is equal to the amount of heat required (288,000 Btu) to melt one ton of ice in a 24-hour period. A one-ton air conditioner is rated at 12,000 Btu per hour (288,000/24). A two-ton unit would be rated at 24,000 Btu per hour."
_____

Some years ago, an American engineering company which we worked with (and who thought they knew better than anyone in Europe) managed to spend millions on developing a laser-based exposure unit for printing plates. The device needed to image an area of four standard printed pages. The finished result, to sell for around $120,000 was duly unveiled and launched worldwide with expensive pizzazz.

At its UK launch, we fell stony silent as the powerpoint presentation progressed. The idiots had designed it around four American sheets of paper (Quarto, 10×8 inches), instead of the global metric standard for A4 (297×210mm, 11¾×8¼"). This reduced it to a two-page imager, virtually unsaleable outside the US.

They were never allowed to make that mistake again - we bought the company.

[Gibbo2286]

The United States has official legislation for metrication; however, conversion was not mandatory and many industries chose not to convert, and unlike other countries, there is no government or major social desire to implement further metrication. Mar 30 2019

[mickthemaverick]

Some years ago, an American engineering company which we worked with (and who thought they knew better than anyone in Europe) managed to spend millions on developing a laser-based exposure unit for printing plates. The device needed to image an area of four standard printed pages. The finished result, to sell for around $120,000 was duly unveiled and launched worldwide with expensive pizzazz.

At its UK launch, we fell stony silent as the powerpoint presentation progressed. The idiots had designed it around four American sheets of paper (Quarto, 10×8 inches), instead of the global metric standard for A4 (297×210mm, 11¾×8¼"). This reduced it to a two-page imager, virtually unsaleable outside the US.

They were never allowed to make that mistake again - we bought the company.

This reminds me of a similar piece of American arrogance in the seventies when, I believe it was Harvard, one of their universities were developing glass fibres for optical use as was our (BT's) research department at Martlesham Heath. They posted a sample of their latest glass rod which was the thickness of a human hair to our lab for inspection. We were so unimpressed we drilled a hole down the centre and sent them back a tube!!

[myglaren]

The amount of nitwittery that abounds in the USA s astounding.

My current printer will always attempt to default to USA standard sizes and even thinks it is in the USA and can't be persuaded otherwise.
The worst thing is it is the only HP printer I have had that has no Linux drivers for it. I have to either send everything to it as an email - via HP in the USA, or Googleprint, also via USA servers, except that packed up a while back.
It stopped working at all a few weeks back and I was going to give it to my son as it works with his Windowshit computer. The it suddenly started accepting the emailed stuff I had sent to it a month before.

[Hell Razor5543]

A story my Mum recounts is that, a long time back, Cadillac believed they made the best limousines in the world. They decided to run a series of tests, comparing their best against all of the others in the world and managed to convince several other car makers to lend them (Cadillac) top of line cars to test against. All, that is, except Rolls Royce (this was before they got taken over by BMW), who responded that, as they had a long waiting list, they could not let them have a new car, but they were prepared to lend them (Cadillac) the 10 year old office runabout RR. Cadillac replied that this would not be a fair test, and again asked for a new RR. Rolls Royce gave the same reply, and suddenly Cadillac got the hint.

[mickthemaverick]

A story my Mum recounts is that, ........................Cadillac got the hint.

That in turn reminds me of a news item in an edition of "The Frost Report" which read something like:
"Rolls Royce have launched a new convertible for the American market. It comes equipped with a "Rain" button. If rain starts falling when you are out in the car you simply press the button - and it stops raining"

[white exec]

I had almost forgotten another incident with the perishing American inches . . .

Two of their larger laser imagers were installed at a printer in south-west London. The job of the machines was to image hundreds of polyester printing plates for overnight use. Coming off a long roll, the polyester plate was imaged and automatically trimmed to length.

Problem: Plates emerged all slightly different lengths, cumulatively increasing by about 1mm a time, and then (every few plates) dropping back to the proper length . . . a sort of 'sawtooth' output. Very puzzling, and no amount of mechanical checking would solve it.

And then a breakthrough. If the required length was inputted in INCHES, the problem disappeared. It turned out that a request for a metric length (nicely allowed by opting for the control panel to operate in metric) was actually being converted by software into inches, involving an on-board calculation, and consequent approximation and rounding-up, which caused the cumulative error, before it collapsed again.

Hickey engineering.

[Gibbo2286]

Is it 'Bash the Yanks' week?

[myglaren]

Is it 'Bash the Yanks' week?

It is always bash the yanks week.

[mickthemaverick]

Is it 'Bash the Yanks' week?

It is always bash the yanks week.

And quite right too!!

[white exec]

Especially the orange ones.

[Hell Razor5543]

Especially the orange ones.

Don't forget the hairstyle!

https://creativecultureint.com/haggis/