2 ms·
You've never heard of tracing attachments for lathes, or Pantograph mills. Copying things and making parts to fit goes back well before the industrial revolutio
by mikewarot 3y ago
You've never heard of tracing attachments for lathes, or Pantograph mills. Copying things and making parts to fit goes back well before the industrial revolution, it used to be the way all things mechanical were made.
If there's enough time and budget, anything, even crashed things from other worlds, can be repaired. I've seen replacements made for the bull gears that hold up Bascule bridges in Chicago, and I've repaired atomic clocks... people improvise, adapt and overcome issues like the odd broken part.
The only limits are artificially imposed, by governments and market capture. I'm currently helping a friend repair a National HRO-500 receiver, likely made before I was born. It's amazing that they managed to build a synthesized general coverage receiver with Germanium transistors (the old ones are NOT reliable, nor anywhere near interchangeable, even with the same part #), but it's getting repaired after 60 years of service.
- eternityforest 3y agoAt that level of effort entire electronics systems might be replaceable too. If a washing machine circuit board breaks (It probably won't, so e mechanical thing will), I could probably swap everything to run on a PLC if I really had to. I wouldn't have a clue what to do if the mechanical timing stuff broke, other than cleaning it and swapping it for a PLC if that failed.
- walterbell 3y ago> anything, even crashed things from other worlds, can be repaired stories welcome :)
- mikewarot 3y agoI keep hinting, to the various TLAs* watching the internet, that I'm willing to sign disclosures, and help fix things / reverse engineer them, if they need me to. But nobody shows up at my door, telling me I need to help my country. ;-) I'm hoping Barry-1[1] works, and pushes into a higher orbit (increasing the Semi-Major Axis on the graph), without propellant. If it works, it shows our "laws" of physics are wrong, and forces us to refine our understanding. For me, that marks a turning point, and a start down the road to being an Interstellar species. * Three Letter Agency, i.e. NSA, NRO, DOE, etc. [1] https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/graph-orbit-data.php?CATNR=58335 https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/graph-orbit-data.php?CA...