I got SU 2025 started by logging out of Trimble, logging back in and restarting SU. Activation problem solved. As for V-Ray, it’s doesn’t appear to be ready for SU 2025. That’s not good considering SU charges you many hundreds of dollars a year for SU Pro Studio which basically is Pro plus V-ray. I’m still holding onto SU 2024 that DOES hava a working V-Ray.
After the pretty decent prints of the turbogenerators, I printed the much larger sub-frame and the support frames for the condensers. I printed the condenser with its support piping, but that was a failure. The drawing was sub-par and the supports weren’t strong enough to support the forming part. It created a crevasse that was inoperable. I bit the bullet and completely redrew the shell making sure it was fully hollow with perfecly formed walls in and out. It will be printed tomorrow.
I decided to print the new condenser barrels separately from its attached pumps and piping to simplify positioning on the printer and insure sucess.
The sub-frame needed some clean up and minor Bondic work on one corner. It also had a complete, non-complicated fracture in one of the side beams. When resin changes state from liquid to solid it creates internal stresses. Sometimes it leads to warping—although in this printer warpage has not been a problem—and, as in this case, breakage. I used Bondic to repair it, and after some mild sanding, the break is invisible. It would be invisible anyway since it will be very difficult to view.
I made the mounting holes for the legs as part of the drawing. There were some weird situations, which occurs in SketchUp, where when you intersect faces from one object to another, the lines don’t create a new surface that can be extruded by failing to create an actual surface. For these instances I drilled a small hole to guide a drill in a post-op.
Here is the repaired corner.
The top view of the sub-frame after cleaning.
And the bottom.
I positioned the TGs on the frame for this image.
Today, the leg and condenser mounting system was printed successfully. As will all printed objects, if you want a shaft and hole to fit be prepared to enlarge the hole or reduce the o.d. of the shaft. This is because the two diameters made from the same drawing would be a press, zero-clearance fit. And, due to the nature of resin printing, the shafts are a couple of thousandths (15 microns) larger and the holes are correspondingly smaller. I took one of the legs that was to fit in the holes and measured it with a drill gauge. A nice clearance was a #18 drill. I opened all the holes to this diamter.
Here’s the sub-frame on the legs. One of the legs wasn’t in full contact with the cross-beam on the drawing and printed as a separate part. i put it on after fitting the pieces into the sub-frame to insure that its alignment was correct. I fastened it with Bondic AND CA. You will notice that the arm on the relief valve is missing on the TG in the foreground. It wasn’t the only thing wrong with these prints. The steam throttle body wasn’t attached to anything being held just by the two pipes, and the gauge panel suffered from the same malady due to forgetting to draw the attachment. I printed a spacer set for the throttles and new gauge panels. I attempted to glue all this together with CA. It didn’t look very good. Then I broke off that little arm. I really liked that detail since it printed so beautifully. The result: I reprinted both of them. Once I know something this important isn’t right and I have the time and resin to do it over, I will do it over. Visitors to the ship have no idea that these machines are suspended on legs so far above the hold. Seeing this model, they will understand it.
Looking up into the supports you see the nice perforated cross-piece. This stuff was almost impossible to photograph in the 1:1 ship, that no one, and I mean no one will be able to discerne that this is either realistic or not. Modeler’s license.
I’m working on the evaporators. These are only located in ER #3. There are three heat vessels. The left end takes in seawater, boils it. It’s steam goes to the middle where is condensed with some condensate being removed and the remainder reboiled again with its steam going to the last vessel and it happens again. The output of the middle vessel produces potible water for crew, the 3rd produces feedwater for the boilers. In other words, the boilers get better water than the crew. I don’t have detailed drawings of these, and my photos only show the front faces, I don’t know where the piping goes when leaving the evaporators. I do know that the feedwater is stored in tankage in the walls of the ship immediately behind these units. Remmber, there are 20 feet of voids, tanks and armor between the engine room’s walls and the ship’s exterior.
Lastly, I’ve redrawn the growing overall project image with the new acrylic bulkheads. This is a better solution that the cutaway slivers that I was originally thinking about.
I’ve completed the print files for the floor grating. I still don’t know how many gratings I will install. They form all the working decks that separate the levels within the engine rooms. Install too many and views will be blocked, but none will give the illusion that people work on montrous machines that tower over their heads. They are supported by angle-iron frames that are very frail in 1:48 scale. I suppose I could print the grating with its supporting angle iron framing. I will see if I can old-school cobble the frames out of styrene shapes. If it’s too ridiculous I will use the printer.
I looking at that picture, I’m thinking the bulkheads could actually form the display case… Hmmm. The shafts would protrude, but that may add interest. Otherwise, you’ll have acrylic walls surrounded by more acrylic. We’lll see. Posting helps me think…
