
Now to start the work on the stand. The idea was to be able to picth and jaw the ship. Or dip to the left and to the fron and then to the right. While this was a awesome idea it posed a lot of problems.
- How to create a mechanism to allow that motion.
- How to prevent the liquid cooling fluids for staying on one side when tilted and casuing the blocks or pump to run dry.
- How to fix the ship in a specific angle.
- How to be able to route cables for hdmi, power, network etc through the center of the tilt/jaw mechanism.
The answer to question 1 was a "constant velocity joint" we got from a frontwheel suspension of a landrover.
The anwer to question 2 was integrating 3 pump/reservoir combo's in the system. One in the front that would allow flow when tilted forward and 2 in the back that would allow flow when tilted backwards. The backside pumps would be at the furthest position possible to the left and right sides to allow flow when tilted to either side.
The answer to question 3 would be to integrate heavy duty screws that would prevent the ship from tilting further or not remain level. The mechanism would become very thick and beefy due to the 50 kg the screws would have to hold in position with shifting fluids.
When we started thinking about how to run cables through the center of the mechanism we ran into the biggest roadblock so far. Just isnt possible without compromising any of the previous questions. We worked on this for about 2 weeks but couldnt solve it. The main issue is that the mechanism isnt hollow. Therefor we needed to get the cables outside the tube and that would cause a lot of structural weaknes, exactly where it needed to be the strongest.
Ans then disaster struck. The guy helping us with the Constant Velocity Joint was a friend of my father in law. Great guy, well in his seventies who lived and breathed cars and trucks. He died of corona complications about 3 weeks before we were going to do the actual work of integrating the landrover parts into the stand. Rien, we will surely miss you!
So after recuperating of the loss we opted for a simple rotational mechanism with more then enough room inside to route cables and also keep the costs down be excluding a pump/reservoir combo.


Heavy duty steel bars act as a counterbalance for the 50kg ship thats on top. We were able to drastically reduce the width of the pipe by using steel instead of iron. The stand pipe still allows for more then enough room to route cables through easily. The base will be covered with aluminum plates resembling a tiefighter wings.


The stand barely fits into my car but getting it home from the welder it turned like a charm. The 3mm steel reinforcement plate has holes to allow for airflow to the PSU and for the location of the 2 servo turbo laser turrets across the hull. Even though 3mm aluminum has a great amount of strength, i opted for the steelplate to make sure it would survive the potentially bumpy flight to the US.
Also we had to do some tests. This was the most important one. 40kg stress test to make sure it will hold the 50kg of the ship!
Passed with flying colours and my kids loved it.


Looks great at the fitting session but something is off. It just didnt feel right.
After staring at the ship for a few hours I finally found the issue!
Its easily visible when the design of the stand pipe is adjusted to the real life position.

My welder had the great idea to fix the pipe at the exact center of gravity of the steel reinforcement plate. Which normally is a good idea. But he didnt see the whole picture and with the bulk of the weight (radiators and fluids) being at the backside of the ship I intentionally placed the tube more to the back.
Also the design of the ship and the reactor dome which moves forward with the position of the pipe, didnt feel right anymore.
We tested the ships ability to prevent tipping over while rotated in several directions and it didnt even budge a little but the design was compromised in my view. The top picture is the original location, the bottom one the new one.
I have tasked my welder with putting the pipe back into its original position.
Which do you think is best?
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