lineshaft mockup for edwardian ball 2011

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Just a quick mockup I did for the Edwardian Ball layout in Infini-D (4.5). I had to install Mac OSX (version4) in order to be able to run classic on my 2.5 GHz (dual) G5. It took about 12 hours to render at 1280x720 at max settings (raytracing, reflections, high anti-aliasing, high patch detail, 30FPS, etc). The final uncompressed quickitme is 1.56GB and looks like it's going to take about an hour and a half to upload to youtube. It will be interesting to see how badly youtube mangles a pristine (uncompressed) input file... (postscript- after all that- youtube choked on it. I recompressed it with the settings they recommended MP4/H264 and it ended up at 36 MB and the result is what you see)

The video shows a 4x4 wooden frame (pine in the model, probably stained a darker walnut in real life) with something like 1" to 1.5" lineshafting with some rusty pulleys on it. A teal steam engine drives it and power is taken off the pulleys to run various accessories. I need to get to Sims and see what their solid round stock goes for and then order the pillow block bearings and 3 jay lovejoy couplers from McMaster or ebay. Ironically, I think the wood and lineshaft part will be easy, it will be the coming up with museum quality accessories to power with this. I'm thinking- sewing machine, giant fan (think horizontal axis ceiling fan) turning slowly, a generator (probably driven more directly off the engine's frame though, so as not to put a lot of stress on the shafting. I have formulas/tables, but they recommend 1-1/2" solid shafting for about 5 HP for every 100RPM. The engine is only good for about 4HP, so that shouldn't be a problem, but I don't know how sturdy the framework is going to be without bolting it to something solid. I may try to cheat with 1" (actually 1.315"OD) black pipe from home depot turned down in the lathe to fit the bearings.

What else? Maybe one of Stephen's pumpjacks, I also have a geared duplex mechanical reciprocating pump that would look cool, might even pump some water if we were ambitious. Oh, yeah, finish my wimshurst machine... maybe a small tesla coil with a tinfoil KSW logo as the output terminal, and maybe a jacob's ladder. All cool looking, but more electrical-related and we're trying to go steamy/mechanical. Also, the tube lights in the drawing are reproduction Edison style bulbs powered by the generator. Note- I have a 110 Volt (DC!) vintage generator at my parents house in San Diego that I'm going to bring back up after Christmas that we could use for those. That will be a nice effect, and I have some old electrical gauges and knife switches. Maybe some porcelain knobs with cloth covered wire run to them? Just ideas for now. We'll see. There was some talk of getting a player piano, but I think that will be a lot of work (we have to get all this stuff up a set of stairs. Even with a ramp, I'm thinking weight. Again, we'll see.)
-Troye

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• lineshaft
• steam
• engine
• edwardian
• ball