The Beam Engine

eleventen 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Quinn (Blondihacks) on youtube is a model engineer machinist and has, IMO, the most outsider-watchable content on building boilers and steam engines like this.

Highly recommend this primer titled "The Model Engineering Learning Curve" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps_BQJEMnGA

She's been building a model locomotive for years now, there are over 100 videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLY67-4BrEae-xhrvZX33gPk4...

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MisterTea an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ever hear the phrase "Balls out" when referring to pushing something to the max? Comes form the balls of the centrifugal engine governor. At maximum speed the balls extended all the way outward giving us the term "Running balls out."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor

edit: I once said this phrase at a work meeting and someone objected to my use of a crude term which I then explained much to everyone's surprise. They thought it had something to do with testicles.

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glinscott 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Definitely a fun note :). I think I heard it first from a Jay Leno youtube video where he was showing his amazing collection of steam powered machinery.

This is from the article, but governors also played a role in kicking off modern control theory! """ In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell studied when these oscillations grow or die away in his paper “On Governors”[https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pdfs/teaching/old_lite...]. This became one of the beginnings of modern control theory. """

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goodmythical 14 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I suppose this is also the less colorful true origin of "balls to the wall" than the phrase itself suggests?

	▲	dghlsakjg 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Nope. Balls to the wall refers to the balls on the end of throttle levers in aircraft cockpit. Going balls to the wall means pushing the throttle and mixture all the way in to the firewall/instrument panel for maximum power.

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dijksterhuis 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

tbh, any time i've said it i've been referring to testicles, but thanks for the helpful excuse in future.

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jscott817 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Similar to balls to the walls (or similar). Coming from the analog aviation controls I believe.

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buildsjets 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Example, throttle controls on a Dogulas DC3. All engine controls forward is the typical convention for full power. (At sea level, neglecting the altitude effect on required engine fuel/air mixture.)

https://www.douglasdc3.com/dc3throt/dc3throt.htm

	▲	conartist6 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That said, i'm sure the pilots were aware of the double entendre

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CalRobert 29 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Balls to the van der Waals

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buildsjets 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fred Dibnah's BBC series "Age of Steam" is a fine overview of the development of steam engine technology and the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_UA36ouzM&list=PL2vJ5Cg-wl...

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glinscott a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.

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monkmartinez a day ago | parent [-]

Really cool site! Did you create the animations with videos of assemblies in a CAD package? Very noice!!!

	▲	glinscott a day ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks! Yes, some of the animations were created from this onshape model, which I rigged for motion: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ebc9190f428cf30153c06148/w.... For other animations I put together a style guide and worked together with Fable to build them.

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a_shovel an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is what finally made the idea behind Watt's condenser click for me.

	▲	glinscott an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Awesome! It's pretty amazing all the concepts that need to come together for even these very old engines. I found I built a better understanding of what was going on as I built out the animations as well.

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delta_p_delta_x an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This reminds me a lot of https://ciechanow.ski, down to the body typeface. (IBM Plex Sans?) Also, the SI units everywhere here make me beam. Thank you :)

	▲	glinscott an hour ago \| parent [-]
		100% - his articles were a major inspiration, and first line in the credits: - Thanks to Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose exceptionally well written and designed articles inspired this one. Glad you enjoyed the units :).

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frereubu an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For those in London who want to see one of these in the flesh, as it were, there's one in Tottenham: https://www.mbeam.org/

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jscott817 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great historical science book on the steam engine here: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Powerful-Idea-World-Invention/dp...

One of my favorites. Good read.

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tingletech 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

my grandpa had a table top model of a beam engine that he would power with a pressure cooker

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bullfightonmars an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

First off, this is very cool, I love these kind of breakdowns from first principal.

This is sending me :)

> One cup of water becomes roughly 400 litres of steam, enough to fill two bathtubs

Three units of measurement in one sentence, my favorite unit is bathtubs.

	▲	glinscott 40 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Thanks! RE: units - Good catch - there is almost certainly a better way to phrase this one. I always tried to give physical examples to make things more concrete. But who knows, maybe the bathtub will take off as a unit :).
	▲	LoganDark 22 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Those damn imperial measurements.

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constantlm an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Cool! If you're in New Zealand, there is a massive, two story Double Woolf beam engine at MOTAT museum in Auckland, along with an array of other steam driven engines that they run from time to time.