12/30 - 1030p
100 old computers! of course...duh...doesn't everyone have a collection of useless old computers? oh, I guess not...so it's not obvious at all...sorry!
They range in age from the late 70s (Z80 cpu) to some "modern" early 2000s stuff.
Back to more interesting stuff. Today we changed the oil, rotated the tires, and washed the cop car, so mom could take it to tucson to see the bball game with her mom. And while we were doign this, oldest kid's friend and his girlfriend showed up to work on their science fair project, as I was told might happen a month or two ago. So we set to work trying to make a Stirling engine out of whatever junk and scrap metal I have laying around.
He had already made the displacer piston from two soda cans with the tops cut off, and stuck together. We found a piece of 3" exhaust tubing left over from when I put the exhaust system on the 55, it's just the right diameter, so I cut it off and welded a plate to one end. Then we discovered an exhaust flange gasket that would work just right for a "head gasket", and some 1/4" thick aluminum to cut the "head" from. We decided to see if a piece of 1" copper water pipe and some threaded fitings would work for the power cylinder, with a chunk of aluminum for the power piston. So they went to the store and got the plumbing supplies, and when they got back we did some cutting and soldering and made they cylinder. After they all left I played around with the cylinder, and discovered that it was really out of round...so I put it in the lathe and bored it out, then honed it. Son helped with this process, and learned a lot...fortunately he didn't get his long hair into the machinery, I noticed in time!
Friend's girlfriend is a smart nerd type just like the boys, and she didn't have any trouble jumping in there filing parts, etc.
And the younger boys' friend came over to work on their project and spend the night. Hopefully they'll get some sleep! you know how kids are.
toodle-oos and happy new years to all!
| previous - next | notes | older entries | newest entry | profile | read other DiaryLand diaries |