True, though good quality high capacity batteries are likely out of reach for most, and getting them shipped to the Philippines might be a challenge (In my experience things can get shipped and arrive from the US to PH in a couple weeks at most, then they get lost in the abyss for months, in my experience they always arrive, if not months later.)
Also, I do wonder if running on 220V makes the AC side more challenging/expensive, of course if you can run most things off DC this point is moot.
I recommend Ondsel as well, which is free without restrictions (they have paid tiers that have cloud features, but those aren't necessary). They should include the FreeCAD 1.0 fixes in a few days. HUGE improvement to the FreeCAD GUI, and it saves in FreeCAD format so you're not stuck.
Most of his contributions to the topology fixes got merged back into freecad now, but his enhancements to UI/behavior aren't (yet), and they make a night and day compared to ondsel too.
I didn't find any significant limitation to RealThunder's assembly3.
In any case, while far from most commercial offerings, FreeCAD is progressing and the future looks bright. I've stopped using f360/onshape in the last years for my hobby designs. Once you know the specific limitations of freecad+occt (something you learn in each cad program) and how to work them around effectively, it's already pretty powerful.
It's also worth noting that they work with FreeCAD and make pushes to them too. So using either helps both. I've been very happy with the developers and they are very responsive on GitHub.
Just to start, I want to acknowledge that the problem space is tremendously complex; the FreeCAD developers have put in a lot of effort and it's amazing that a project like FreeCAD exists at all.
Not trying to disrespect the other FreeCAD developers, but it seems like things have improved remarkably since ondsel started taking a more active role.
The project seemed to exhibit a (common) impulse to prioritize extensibility too much. The "workbench" architecture and python API let you do some really neat stuff if you're willing to dig into the weeds. But, from the perspective of a community outsider (so take it with a grain of salt), the development process seemed to be a good example of Conway's Law in action. The workbenches let everyone have their own sub-projects to manage without stepping on each other's toes. This led to a lot of resulting complexities, inconsistencies, and instabilities, which made the approach a net negative (imo) in terms of tradeoffs.
With ondsel, there's been more focus on holistic improvements and getting the individual modules working together more smoothly, which I greatly appreciate.
Agreed with all of this. Although... the extensibility (while it is the stereotypical open source trap that leads to splintering of focus and complexity) is ALSO nice, although built on a shaky platform. Once the base GUI and functionality of Freecad is fixed up, the extensibility could potentially allow more flexibility than commercial CAD packages. Lots of potential there, if the platform is improved.
I think we'll see such self-driving taxi interiors optimized for staying clean and then ease of cleaning. At the limit, think like a stainless steel kitchen that can just be sprayed down. Or these sort of self-cleaning public bathrooms: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z81KtV9w5fo?feature=share
1) You actually can, as high voltage DC transmission lines have shown in China (and some places in the US), where you can transmit for literally thousands of kilometers. Transmission is a political problem, not a technical one. Which doesn't make it easier to solve (it's harder to solve political problems, as a rule), but your sort of argument contributes to making it harder politically, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
2) Making it near consumers makes little difference to overall land-use. Yes, you can make more solar power from the same area in desert than in more temperate climates, but you're still talking a very small amount of land.
Note that SpaceX did this. They developed their own engines (altho initial 5 flights did get a 3rd party built turbopump, analogous to XB-1, I suppose), developed their own highly vertically integrated rocket, and offered launch services. Now, RocketLab does the same and they’re being joined by Firefly, Blue Origin, and Relativity, all being at least F9-level reusable eventually.
Everyone takes for granted launch vehicles being “easier” than airliners now, but go back to the 1990s and the attitude would’ve been switched (PARTICULARLY high-rate and economic reusable launch vehicles, which were considered virtually unattainable).
I think it’s totally doable to make both an airliner and an engine, and the main reason we don’t think so is successful PR by old aerospace primes.
Lets say they are really good and they are ready to test fly in 3 years to meet that 5 year goal (which I'll tell you right now is not happening), they still need engines. 3 years to design, develop, and build a clean sheet engine. It took GE and Safran (CFM) 10 years between the announcement of the LEAP and its certification:
So no, it is quite unlikely that a company with no experience in commercial jet engines (Florida Turbines, subsidiary of Kratos) will be able to field the equivalent of a modern day concord engine in 3 years. I would say the main reason people think it could be is successful PR from new startups.
Projections for these projects are always very optimistic. Why are you focusing so heavily on their runway being tied to some ideal date in 2 early contracts they signed?
It's not optimistic, it's not an ideal date, it's marketing fluff with no bases in reality. Maybe I'm the odd one out here but does that not bother you?
Flying an engine once before a quick refurbish without risking human life isn’t the same as flying an engine for weeks before any significant downtime/maintenance.
SpaceX did it but nowhere like on the timelines they have anticipated. They also expected 4 years from start to Falcon 5 flight - which was cancelled and replaced by Falcon 9 eventually - but it took 8 years and then another 3 years before regular flights and another 5 before reusability started to really work.
Lack of an industrial base and native experience in doing so. Once one company does it, the experience gained can spread to other companies via employees moving around and forming suppliers for those same companies. For India it also has the issue of brain drain as any of the people working on India's engines could easily jump ship and move to the UK or the US and get pretty good jobs in our aerospace industries and get paid a whole lot more.
Also China does have it's own engines used in its military aircraft.
Designing very efficient engines that are also cost efficient is the focus of a lot of those big primes in the US/UK/Europe so competing with them may be difficult, however there is currently no one trying to make very efficient _supersonic_ engines. All supersonic engines are destined for military jets which care a lot more about peak performance as the primary design parameter. In other words there is no one operating in the segment Boom is trying to develop an engine and they can hire a lot of people from the rest of the US industry who already have a lot of experience designing engines or people who were trained by said people.
Ironically it may be SpaceX who kills off Boom if they're successful in implementing suborbital long distance passenger travel with Starship, though that's still very much an open question if it's possible. Such travel would, if successful, most likely be way faster and cheaper than supersonic long distance travel because of the reduced losses from drag.
If it happens, it'll have to happen dozens of miles out to sea.
This video is outdated (and a surface ferry like shown would be too slow... probably would have to be some sort of aircraft, or the time on the ferry would make the rocket trip not worth it), but this shows the idea: https://youtu.be/zqE-ultsWt0
in the case of India, their engine development project for the HAL Tejas started out with ~50 million USD in 1989 and had a target goal of 5 years.
Given that (even after a 650% cost overrun and 30 years) the total engine development cost is still about $400 million USD, that buys about one and a half F-35Bs.
Even when picking good and cheap, there’s cheap and then there’s shoestring.
>and the main reason we don’t think so is successful PR by old aerospace primes.
It's partly that, and also partly that making engines successful is a different business. For capital intensive industries, it's natural that they separate and consolidate into specialties, which is why you see things work they way they do today. SpaceX is probably the exception that prove the rule, at least for space access. It would be nice to see Boom become that same exception for passenger jet aircraft. For obvious reasons, given the ongoings with Boeing.
But not for a space mission which requires careful tracking, metrology, and controls. And is by default restricted by ITAR/EAR and possibly classified.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, so that wasn't my situation. I was a welder for a company in NYC making animated displays in the mid-90s. I took the subway. I would read, think about work, observe people, etc. No phones and internet then, so sometimes talking to fellow passengers.
reply