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Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

howacarworks.com

141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#141
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unior provided the tools for this course. They really are great quality - and run by real people who are proud of what they make. I went to their factory in Slovenia where they make 99.9% of everything they sell. We talked about making the series and they saw the potential in it and supported me when it really looked a risky bet. I'm very happy to advocate their tools because they are genuinely good, European-made an…

How many 10mm sockets were lost during production? :)

Probably none because when you're not trying to beat the clock on book hours you don't make as many mistakes.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#142

Very cool. It's amazing how complex the combustion engine seems, especially compared to an electric motor. No wonder cars have a limited lifetime of typically some 150-200k miles. It's going to be really interesting to our purchasing and maintenance patterns for EVs.

Just re-commenting from above: my Mazda Protege (with the same engine shown in the video) has 233k and is still going strong, doesn't burn barely a drop of oil. Pretty amazing for a 20-year old car.

>Mazda Protege

I think you misspelled Ford Escort.

Speaking of which, trying to buy a Ford Escort on CList can result in some very ambiguous text messages.

Edit: Thanks for the down-votes. Please read the Wikipedia page on the Escort and Protege. They use the same platform from the 90s onward which was the time when Ford and Mazda collaborated on a lot of stuff. Both flavors of the platform have their pros and cons.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really share conversion stuff yet. But one interesting observation off the top of my head is that my customers MASSIVELY prefer paying with Paypal to Stripe, even though I deliberately steer them towards Stripe. It was a massive pain to implement Paypal and I hated every moment of it but it produced an uptick in payments.

I just paid by PayPal. I'm reading this post on the couch relaxing and I have no desire to go get my wallet and dig out my credit card. Way easier. Also, after watching a couple videos and reading the content, the production value and informational value of this is super high. By the time I learned what the price was, I was fairly surprised how cheap it was. $20 is what I spend on a sandwich and drink for lunch. So i…

Same for me, the price is a no-brainer.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#144
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just paid for this using Paypal. I prefer paying straight from my bank account rather than using a credit card. My debit card (Dutch pin card) cannot be used for online payments, but Paypal is connected to my bank account. Is Stripe able to do something similar?

Just curious: would you have not purchased if PayPal wasn't available and you had to use a credit card?

I would've this particular purchase, I'm one of those "DIY auto repair enthusiasts" :)

Using the debit card (PayPal) is just a way of tricking myself into buying stuff really :) With credit card I am constantly reminded of how much I have left of my limit (just like seeing how much cash I have left in my wallet) and next month I'm hit with a big bill for stuff I bought "long time ago".

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#145
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice. In that case, I suppose the most utility 3D scans would have is as references to enable a faster low-poly modeling workflow. Then again, scanning would likely incur a non-trivial time cost—one that can't outweigh the very benefits the process affords.

We use photogrammetry for the block, head, dashboard and transmission. It's invaluable for these organic parts. Then retopologized. BLENDER IS AWESOME.

Blender is amazing. Check out the new Eevee realtime renderer[1] in 2.8 as well! It's astonishing :)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAVjwXEjDdo

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could've cut filming time in half or doubled it if you had chosen a different engine.

That would have required picking a different car to start with.

Ford v10 would have about the same amount of stuff per cylinder but 2.5x as many cylinders.

SOHC I4 from a "manual everything" economy car with 1st gen EFI would probably be about the lowest part count without getting into flathead territory.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#149
post #3

It took 2,500 photos and 4 days to shoot, followed by about 8 days of photoshopping & grading.

Beautiful! Are you planning on rebuilding it? Another shoot? Is there a reason you don't mark the parts original location or is that simply because you intend to replace them?

Honest question, if you just ran the video in reverse, could anyone tell that it was not an actual rebuild? It is stop motion after all, in a sense there is no motion but just captured moments in time, and those moments can be reversed.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#150

Very cool. It's amazing how complex the combustion engine seems, especially compared to an electric motor. No wonder cars have a limited lifetime of typically some 150-200k miles. It's going to be really interesting to our purchasing and maintenance patterns for EVs.

Ehh modern engines are pretty reliable. They can easily do over 200k miles. The actual combustion part is basically a solved problem. Modern fuel injection (amongst other things) has done wonders for engine reliability. It's usually other things that cause people to want to ditch cars around 150-200 k. E.g. the automatic transmission failing, timing belt (instead of a chain) failing around 100k, alternator and other…

A typical car will "last" 200k miles[1].

It's not really still a fair comparison to EVs, because a typical combustion engine will require significant and regular maintenance plus part replacement to make it to 200k.

> E.g. the automatic transmission failing, timing belt (instead of a chain) failing around 100k, alternator and other electronics, pumps, etc.

Exactly why EVs are such a game changer. They literally don't have any of those parts.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-ke...

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