Chapter 145: True manufacturing
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
Those who enjoy advancing technologies generally tend to be the loneliest of the loners.
Before, Ye Qing was still in a meeting with several dozen people. Now that the contracts had been signed, he now had face the reality of the monsters as he tried to think of new advances.
After he finished photographing the raging mainers, the peons who went out before came back with two bats.
Yes, bats!
This was the kind of animal that would give people goosebumps; especially girls.
Ye Qing felt relieved that they were securely held onto in the peons hands, since even their screams alone were annoying enough.
Bats were some very ancient organisms, just somewhat older than dinosaurs. Their wings were truly something special, especially that skin membrane growing in between the claws. It practically looked exactly like those western dragon wings from the movies.
Although there wasn’t a real dragon, however Ye Qing was prepared to fuse one.
The raging miners had the most fitting appearance and body to represent a dragon, except they were just missing the wings. On the other hand, a bat’s wings just so happens to look like a dragon’s, thus all Ye Qing needed to do was enlarge it to match the size of the raging miners, and voila, a majestic, awe-inspiring dragon.
Ye Qing had the peons keep the bats in the prepared cages, then used the 3D camera to capture all their movements while they tried to futilely escape. [Tl: Totally not animal abuse.]
As for enlarging the wings and merging it with the body of raging miner, that was a detail left for the master artisans to finish.
For the Disney princesses that were ordered, Ye Qing first had some mannequin like bodies created.
This was kind of shameful to be honest. Why? Because they all came out of the forging center completely nude. As for why Disney had all these 3D blueprints, that was purely because it was easier and more economical to create them this way.
Now, in Ye Qing’s hands, they had become ice cold, metallic, glossy……
Um… can’t really go further. In any case, Ye Qing felt that they were pretty real and lifelike.
When the last princess was completed, a master artisan came over with an electronic blueprint. Ye Qing thought that it was the completed blueprints of the dragons, but the master artisan informed him that this was the shrunken base of the Mechanical Colossus.
The dragons’ blueprints were probably going to have to wait until early in the morning, so Ye Qing took a look at the time and choose to get some rest.
With the rise of the sun the next day, Ye Qing walked into his office with sleepy eye and there already were two master artisans in the workshop already assembling away all the necessary parts of Mechanical Colossus.
For its power system, Ye Qing first choice was to use the 300 KW hybrid diesel generator. This generator was able to produce almost twice the amount of power needed to operate an excavator, so even if it was the shrunken version, or the original Mechanical Colossus, it was going to be able to power them, weigh at least thirty tons, and be at least one size bigger than regular excavators.
Once he entered the underground lair, three of the same looking glaring black dragons sat on top of separate boulders appeared in front of Ye Qing.
Even having gotten used to how the raging miners looked, Ye Qing was scared to the point of sweating bullets when seeing them.
The raging miners were already big enough as it was, yet these three dragons in front of him on their several meter tall boulders, towered above with gaping mouths of razor sharp teeth, seemingly looking down on those ants that dared to overlook them.
Those clearly appeared to be metal dragons. Time even seemed to have left its mottled mark on their horns, while a thick layer of scales covered their entire body. With careful examination, one would find that none of the scales appeared the same. After some enlargements and thickening, not only could the thick and massive bone be found in their pairs of wings, their wingtips were also sharp to the point of making people shudder with only glances.
Ye Qing hurriedly turned his appearance away to the rows upon rows of Disney princess mannequins.
*Whistle ~* The perfectly shaped princesses had Ye Qing feel warmth from the bottom of his heart. When those custom ordered exquisite clothing and wigs arrived, and after the princesses had been dressed up and prettied up, then with the help of the 3D camera, the existence of these perfection like Disney alloy princesses would finally be born.
As for the rest of the order, they were just so much easier. There were iris flowers in many stores within Zhongyun’s botanic stores and there were coconut trees within the University of Zhongyun. Although the Zhongyun’s climate wasn’t suited to grow coconut trees, the University of Zhongyun’s tropical climate research laboratory had a couple, which never seemed to bear any ripened coconuts.
There was no rush with the coconut trees as the deadline for the contract was an entire week. As such, Ye Qing decided that it could wait until he had taken the prototype Mechanical Colossus for a spin after it’s completion.
Having photographed the twenty some different coloured and patterned iris flowers bought back by his employees with the 3D camera, Ye Qing immediately delved back into the research for the prototype Mechanical Colossus.
The arms on normal excavators were generally all made out of carbon steel. This kind of steel couldn’t even be considered a type of alloy, and wasn’t even classified as low alloy grade steel.
It was the most common steel used in a wide variety of applications within the industry, mainly due to its easiness to handle, as well as its cheapness to produce.
However, if this type of material was used within the Mechanical Colossus, then to reach the standards set forth by Ye Qing, even the master artisans would be helpless.
Thus, for the arms of the prototype Mechanical Colossus, Ye Qing was prepared to create them using alloy steel. Specifically, it was the highest grade steel available on the market, the [High carbon-chromium steel].
This kind of alloy steel was generally used in the creation of bearings. Add on its hardness and wear resistance, and the high limits on its flexibility, and it was a superb choice to use in the construction of the main structure of the Mechanical Colossus arms.
As for its shortcomings, high hardness and being difficult to process, Ye Qing could only say that he was going make them directly into the shape needed, so what was there to modify?
As for the complex mechanical components inside, they could all be created with this kind of material and low titanium alloys.
Although the costs had gone up, its strength was now much higher, and it would have an even lower chance of encountering low level technical problems such as loss parts or exploding hydraulic pipelines.
Why were Komatsu excavators able to dominate half of the construction market in China?
Although they were more expensive than the same class domestic excavators, they had greater strength, higher efficiency, and had lower chances of mechanical problems occurring.
Here’s a simple example: normally when an excavator is used to dig the necessary drainage channels, it’s usually pair with a crane to lift and lower the to be placed pipelines. Generally domestic excavators, after being in operation for a period of time, will all encounter problems such as being unable to move the arm or have a bucket stuck half way.
However, as long as this prototype beast was completed, then even if it was put against ten Komatsu excavators, all that was left for them was to dig holes in the ground to hid in.
As for the complete version that was going to weigh over 100 tons and was going to have arm lengths of at least 30 meters, in front of the complete Mechanical Colossus with two artificial mechanical arms even fifty Komatsu excavators together aren’t enough .
Having busied himself from the morning until all the way into the afternoon, the platform with the arms, as well as the base of the entire machine, were all completed.
No hydraulic pipeline was exposed on the outside of the mechanical arms, none of the traditional gas powered hydraulic presses, it was all completely in the style of robust mechanics.
Two mechanical arms sat on the left and right of the rhombus shaped work platform, which contained a shockingly powerful hydraulics system and the electric power transmission system.
The hands for the arms weren’t created because for its applications, a hand was a very backwards tool. For excavation, the fingertips definitely needed a razor sharp edge so that it was able to part the earth. For boring, then it was only down to holding a chisel.
Therefore, most of the time, the hand was a very restrictive tool.
And the need to hold onto tools obviously wasn’t as secure as the tools coming pre-secured.
Hence, to adopt the need to quick switching, Ye Qing brought forth an idea only used within those top-notch CNC machines.
