You do realize that the word “engine” predates the invention of both gasoline and steam engines?
In real world driving, you limit the amount of amp draw by accelerating gently from a dead stop, which partially at least, renders the advantage of a multispeed gearbox moot. Where I live, Tesla roadsters nearly outnumber the Priuses, and I rarely see the drivers of those cars trying to prove to the world how fast they can accelerate.
Agreed, if your real world driving is mostly on flat terrain. In one of my work projects, we had powered a 3v stepper motor with 12v simply by turning off 3/4 of the duty cycles using code
On hills, you are going to use a heavy foot on the go pedal. I think it’s better to use gears for torque multiplication rather than high current. This is especially true for something utilitarian such as the cyber truck.
Modern DC chopper motor speed controls are not necessarily drawing high current from the batteries when they are delivering low voltage/high current to the motor during low speed use. They are kind of like DC to DC transformers in that respect. High voltage/low amps in, low voltage/high amps out.
Stepped ratio gearboxes may have made sense in primitive EVs that controlled power with rheostats.
Henry Ford took apart his mother’s or grandmother’s sewing machine just to see and put it back together again. I wonder if there are any enterprising young Henrys taking apart their mother’s machines. They have neat little motors and a foot pedal. Of course 110V but that can be fixed. I’d never allow one of those to be thrown out without salvaging the motor.
My brother took apart all sorts of devices, tools, machines, etc. when he was a kid
He never became a great inventor or captain of industry
I also took apart a lot of things to see how they worked as a kid, and made a lot of junk work again.
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I still do it. Almost nothing of any consequence gets disposed of without first disassembling it to see how it was designed and built. I fix all kinds of things most people would throw out just because of the satisfaction of doing it.
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I sure can relate Mr @TwinTurbo and @B.L.E …
I consider that practice one of the first classes that are held in The School of Old.
Ah yes, I have fond memories from the days of “The Old School”…
Now if I could only recall the school theme song the cheerleaders used to sing, but it eludes me at present.
My childhood friend Lewis and I disassembled old watches together to see how they worked, and coincidentally, my paternal grandmother often boasted she could completely disassemble and reassemble a Model T Ford and a Model A Ford when she was a child.
The next natural question @Whitey would be if those watches could keep time after those disassembly events?
Or were they perfectly correct only twice a day after that? lol jk
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Gimme an F gimme an R gimme a U gimme a G A L…
Or was it-
Bric-a brac-a, firecracker, sis boom ba!
Blackbird, blackbird rah, rah, rah!
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Lewis’ parents knew better than to give us working watches, and we pretty much destroyed them in the process.
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Might have been…might have been… I think it went something like that
Toyota started out building a power loom to automate his mother’s work
The company logo is the representation of a thread through the eye of a needle. I’m curious if Toyota weaved its own carbon fiber for the Lexus LFA
It will be a long time before EVs are able to replace ICs at ground level for billions of people around the world.
All over the world people are operating with the real basics and getting by and no one is offering subsidies for swapping the Gravelys for Teslas
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I disassembled a lot of things as a kid and made a lot of junk.
Seriously, many years ago a little boy across the street came over to my house and asked If I could fix his bike.
I asked him if his daddy could no fix it. He said " All my daddy has is a hammer and I don’t want him to hit it! "
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Here’s my first camera:
As you can see I went into it a couple times to fix the shutter, which isn’t much different from a clock.
Didn’t bother to save or re-apply the front skin.
My older brother bought it at the Navy PX for $64 in the late '60s.
I have the exact camera, but that one looks a little funky with that raw metal gizmo around the lens…
I’ll have to look at mine when/if I go back north, if/when the state opens up, again.
I bought mine new, don’t remember what I paid (receipt is probably with the camera), and I bought a Gossen Luna Pro light meter to go with it. Time exposure night scenes were fun.
I was into black and white photography and darkroom work. I had 35mm cameras, too, but those 2-1/4" square negatives were nice for big enlargements, 11X14 and 16X20 and that camera did a decent job.
CSA
Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,
You take the Notre, I’ll take the dame!
Send a freshman out for gin,
Don’t let a sober soph’more in.
We never stagger, we never fall,
We sober up on wood alcohol!
While her sober sons go marching
On to the next saloon.