[Malvern] Project Megun

[Chris Eilbeck]

On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 11:56:15AM +0100, Ian Pascoe wrote:
> Chris
> 
> Can I take you up on your offer of help please mate?

Sorry Ian, was away at the weekend.

> I've downloaded a couple of CAD programs and none of them allow for a
> curve to be drawn from a formulae - you needd to do something in their own
> particular script and the free trial period would disappear before I have
> chance to master it!
> 
> The formulae I need drawn is:
> 
> x^2  (squared) = 4 A Y
> 
> where x and y are the plotting co-ordinates,, and A is the focal length.
> The range of y is +/- 150
> A is 300
> 
> All dimensions are in mm
> 
> If you could print it off, and maybe send it to me as a picture file too
> ....

Lets talk a bit about what you need before I draw anything.  Is this gonna
be something like an aluminium surface with some sort of support structure
behind it and a pivot point so it can track the sun by some method?  How do
you intend someone to make it?  A one-dimensional parabola won't self-
support like a satellite dish will so it's gonna need some structure behind
there.  What kind of diameter will the pipe for the working fluid be?  If
it's quite wide, it might be easier to just use a circular reflector rather
than a parabolic one.

Chris
-- 
Chris Eilbeck
MARS Flight Crew                              http://www.mars.org.uk/
UKRA #1108 Level 2                                                UYB
Tripoli UK Member #9527                                          LSMR