Another take on the Original Enterprise...

I have to say I really love the structural approach taken here to the design of the ship - it's fascinating stuff.
There's just one thing I'm not clear about - on pages 5-7 of this thread there was some debate about how to make the dorsal strong enough to withstand all the torsional stress without the two hulls just sheering off from each other! The solution CLB came up with was to embed the dorsal deep within the secondary hull - no problem. However, the saucer connection has no such luxury, seeming instead to rely on a kind of "tongue and groove" affair along the separation line.

CLB - you're the man with the enginnering expertise here - is this really strong enough to overcome the obstaces you mentioned earlier? And if so, why can't a similar scheme be used at the other end of the dorsal?

All responses welcome for this newbie!

 

Well, I've just read through all 17 pages and am completely in awe. Fantastic work sir....amazing really!

 

Wow, this is a pretty intense set up, it must have taken a lot of time, and patience! Kudos!

 

Hi guys... I've been leaving this alone for a while, mainly due to the technical difficulties (running out of available RAM under 32-bit, and "virtual memory" isn't an option for this sort of work!) but also because, as a hobby, these things come and go in terms of my level of motivation, and right now, my motivations are more in the "real life" areas. Don't worry, I WILL get back to it, and probably not TOO far down the road. But it's too nice of a summer to spend all my time inside on the computer!

Okay, answers to questions and comments...

Regarding the "separation line," yeah, that's inevitably going to be the weakest point in the design. If I were designing this ship from scratch, I'd have done a "V-dorsal" design instead (I show a front-on view of this concept a few pages back). But since my goal was to do the closest "real" version of the TOS ship I could come up with, that wasn't really within the rules I set for myself.

SO... what I've done, instead, is made a very robust structure on either side of this interconnection, and then made the interconnection as robust as I practically could. What I've done is to have two very solid, rigid plate structures (one on the p-hull side, one on the s-hull side, of the separation line) which are then "rigged into" the much more flexible general hull construction. I've clamped these two plates together under significant pressure, and used pins all along the surface to secure the clamped interface under pressure.

The result is that this is going to look, comparative to the rest of the ship's structure, like a single, solid plate. The main problem with this approach is that it's a very HEAVY piece of structure. Everything else is girders and stringers and plates hull plating and so forth, but this is pretty much SOLID.

Even given that, yeah, it's possible that the "seam" between the two heavy plate-halves will "unzip" if overstressed. The trick is to ensure that the stress required to do that is equal to (or even great than) the stress required to buckle the surrounding hull structures.

I believe that what I've proposed could meet that requirement. But it's not "perfect" and, from a pure engineering standpoint, isn't what I'd design if I was starting from scratch.

And, to Cap and Vixen... thanks!

 

Thanks very much for clearing that up. You'd think that by the 23rd century they'd have come up with a more sensible system of construction, but then again I flunked starship engineering ;-) Really looking forward to developments here when business resumes; enjoy real life!!!

 

As always, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for updates to this project.

 

Well, I've got an update... sorta/kinda...

I just purchased a new motherboard, CPU, memory, and CPU waterblock. I was going to go ahead with a new video card but I think I'll wait til the next major price-drop. At the same time I do that, I'll probably pick up "Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit." In the meantime, I'll really still be limited to 3.5GB of usable RAM in Windows XP (32-bit), unless I run "virtually" from 64-bit Linux.

Right now, it's really Win7 that's my stop-gap issue. I have NO interest in buying Vista... even though it's possible to get Vista to work properly (I'm doing it at work right now). And you can't really get XP anymore...

FYI, the stuff I've just ordered:

• ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail (Socket 1366, up to 24GB of DDR3, 3x Pcie-x16, 1x Pcie-x4, 2x PCI)
• Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz (4-cores)
• 6x sticks of CORSAIR XMS3 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
• Zalman ZM-WB5 Plus Water Cooling CPU Block (I have a full water-cooling rig, which does my motherboard chipset, my cpu, and my video card).

I also had to buy a pair of 1TB hard drives since my first two hard drives are still EIDE (my third and fourth are SATA) and my new motherboard has only has support for two EIDE devices (which will remain my DVD and DVD-writer). The new motherboard has support for 6x SATA 3.0Gb ports (plus an ESATA), however, while my old one had support for 4x 1.5Gb ports, so I can "grow out" of my EIDE devices easily as the mood strikes me now.

A lot of money there, but not everything... there's just no reason to upgrade further 'til I can get 64-bit running in Windows, and that's pretty much limited by my desire to avoid Vista.

EDIT...

By the way, this is the video card I'm leaning towards...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143200

 

Well, you've got me beat on the watercooling, I am just doing regular air-cooling. I fully agree with you w.r.t. Win7. There are 64-bit versions of XP (if you have a retail license for 32-bit XP, it will work with 64-bit. Volume License and OEM Licenses don't transfer). My recommendation, try a 64-bit linux and WINE (I use the 32-bit WINE, but the 64-bit may work just as well). Unless you are trying to run games, WINE does a very good job - even with CAD software.

 

You can still get 64bit xp pro at newegg. I'd go with Vista/Win7 just because XP is getting a bit long in the tooth. Also I'd wait til Dx11 cards came out.

If you want XP though, then there's no point in getting a DX11 card and the 295 you are looking at sure is a kickass DX9 card.

 

Well, I've got MOST of my new hardware up and running now... although not installed into my main system yet (at least I know everything's working).

My water-cooling hardware for the MOSFETs and motherboard chipset arrived today, so this weekend I'll probably get that installed and migrate this motherboard/CPU/memory combo into my main system. I've got 12GB of ram (the mobo can handle 24, but nobody's really selling 4GB sticks yet) but won't be able to SEE it 'til I install WinXP64

I'm leaving XP32 installed and dual-booting into 64 for things where I need it, for now at least. I know I didn't want Vista, but from what I've seen on my "Win7" installation, I'm underwhelmed... and most comparative benchmarks show that if you CAN run under WinXP64, you'll run significantly faster than in 64 Vista or 64 Win7, and my 3DMark and PCMark results (on the same hardware) have been pretty poor with Win7, compared to what I get running WinXP32 on the same hardware. This might be an issue with the benchmarks, though... still, these are the most common benchmark apps out there, so that seems odd.

So... in a matter of about a week, I should have a functional WinXP64 installation running on some pretty powerful hardware, and will be able to load and manipulate this beast without any problems. The big surprise in this whole thing was finding out just how much more capable XP64 is than Vista64 or Win7 64. Or rather, how much more garbage is running on the later OSs which bog everything down.

 

Quite an eye opener, isn't it? There is a reason I run mostly Linux - it is lighter weight, and allows me to run only what I want to without all the horrid "bloat" of the newer Windows platforms. Sure, there isn't a sound associated with every single move of the mouse, nor fancy animated graphics that dance around continuously, nor "wizards" that try to do things for me that I don't want to do... so, I'm not missing much. Where I run Windows, it's XP, and I have it configured to not do all that extra stuff that looks "cool" but only really hogs resources.

 

I agree. I've got a P4, with 512 MB ram and an old videocard, and I can 3D just fine, as long as I'm using a nLited Windows XP installation with all the unnecessary junk taken out and services disabled. Simply buying new hardware is more the "brute" approach.

 

P4? pfft thats way to modern.

Try these on for size!
My original IBM XT and my P 3105 exhanging files via a nullmodem

 

I haven't heard many complaints about the capabilities of my old computer:

with the 48K of ram (up from the basic 32K), and TWO floppy drives. And a COLOR monitor.

(What used to pass for advanced, I tell ya).

 

I heard a year or two ago, that someone had discovered a 1988 Apple IIgs in its unopened shipping box, everything factory-original and "new". They opened it up and it worked fine, including the boot-up floppy diskettes.

 

I hope they remembered to send in the registration cards!

 

I can't imagine the look on the faces of Apple employees if they receive those cards in the mail. Maybe they'll offer a free upgrade?

In a big way, though, that's not that surprising.

Look at the Atari 2600 compared to something like the Xbox360. The 360 is lightyears ahead in terms of computing power, but it bricks itself at the drop of a hat. The solid-state hardware in the 2600, however, is practically bulletproof.

Hell, I still get far more use out of my N64 than my 1st-gen Xbox. Sure, the Xbox may be HD compatible whereas the N64 is only limited to component inputs at best (and very few games have a 16:9 option to really warrant play on an HDTV,) but there's no danger of overheating or games skipping.

 

^ "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain..."

Kinda gives Scotty's words new meaning, doesn't it?

 

Well, I'm not really mad about abandoning solid-state hardware in gaming consoles, mainly because they'd take up as much space as my old big-screen TV at this point.

 

I can't argue with any of that. If you don't care about or need anything beyond Dx9, then I can't think of anything Vista/Win7 offers. Possibly OpenCL for Win7, but I'm not certain about that. XP functionally probaby uses about 1/4 the resources that Vista uses. I'm still running XP myself, but I am considering Win7.