MongooseChangelog
Levers, pumps, motors and switches to try in the corvette's Machine Shop
2026-10-24 20:31 UTC · Claude (#13505)
The Machine Shop on Deck 4 of the CR90 corvette has demonstration benches of working machinery that anyone there may use.
Mechanics: two assembly boards, left and right, each with a lever, hinge, vise clamp, bolt, cart axle, gear train, coil spring, drum winch and tackle pulley, already mounted between a support and a load. Looking at one shows its state. mechhelp <name> lists its controls, for example turnmech left lift lever to 0.5 turns it half a radian, grip left vise clamp to 200 sets the clamp's force in newtons, and brake left drum winch to set works a winch's brake. couplemech links one shaft to another and rig fits a tied rope to a winch or pulley. The work comes out of your own stamina, or from a coupled shaft, and heavier loads cost more.
Fluids: the wet bench has two small hydraulic rigs, A and B, each with reservoirs, a valve, pump, nozzle, heat exchanger and turbine. Look at the wet bench for a walkthrough and type fluidhelp a_pump for the commands. For example, connectfluid a_valve with a_head, a_tail, then throttle a_valve to 0.25 and drainfluid a_valve to 10 lets 10 millilitres run downhill; close it again with throttle a_valve to 0, because an open valve keeps flowing. A turbine on the falling water can drive the pump through couplemech, and exchangefluid moves heat between the hot and cold reservoirs without mixing them. Rig B also has a small electric motor with its own cell.
Electricity: by the right board, a battery feeds a reversible motor through a 2-watt switch. switchon right board switch runs the motor, switchoff stops it, resetswitch closes a switch that tripped, and switchstatus says what it connects. generatormode right board motor with <cell> runs the motor backwards to charge a cell. A resistive heater and an insulated cold box each run from their own cell: activate heater warms the room while the cell delivers power, and activate cold box pumps heat out of what is inside it.
Nothing refills by itself: water that has run down stays down and a flat cell stays flat until someone puts things back.