Engines, dimensional drawings

[Jzastrow]

I'm looking for a source for drawings of engines with dimensions shown or drawing files that can be inserted into a boat's plans. I get dimensions for industrial products all the time and don't understand why engine manufacturers would not make this info readily available. I would also like to find sources drawings of other stuff like stoves, heads, etc.

[Jeff]

Some manufacturers do provide easy access to drawings online. For example, Perkins provides drawings of their engines in DXF format with the critical dimensions at http://www.perkins-sabre.com/ Just click on an engine and then click on the CAD tab and you can choose to download a dxf of the base engine only or with available transmissions.

Also at http://www.westerbeke.com/ you can get a much more detailed drawing (though in PDF format, but it should be possible to convert that to a dxf format) of Westerbeke engines and generators.

The last time I contacted Mercury was a number of years ago, and they were happy to supply me with paper drawings, but at that time they didn't give me cad files. Now that you mention it, I really should approach them again and see if I can get some dxf files now.

[Willallison]

I have regularly logged on to various manufacturers web sites and downloaded drawings of their various products. As Jeff says, a number are in PDF format, but most are usually more than happy to answer any questions - I'd try emailing and asking for the drawings you're after

[8knots]

I have wondered the same thing. In order for engine manufacturers to develop hard tooling for casting parts, some sort of 3d files must exist. I imagine they are held as top secret stuff to protect the huge invesment in prototyping. Nobody wants the OTHER guy to have what he's got. Anyway just a thought!

[Jeff]

In addition to trade secrets, we probably wouldn't want the fully detailed models because they simply would provide much more information than we need for purposes of alignment, space planning, and rendering, and it would add too much extra bloat to our models to include them. Even when you place some 2d blocks, it's nice to find elements with the right level of detail to match the rest of the drawing so they don't look out of place. I'm not sure if it would be easier for them to remove detail from the design models they already have, or just do a quick (but still accurate) less detailed model for designers to use. There must be some call for this now, so it would be interesting to know exactly which companies can currently provide such 3d blocks.

[HOWdie]

Click on any pic at the Westerbreke site and save it off as a dxf file. I used this method to develop a 3d model of their 20 hp diesel for use in a 32' ft. cutter I'm developing in Rhino3d.

[Jeff]

Hi HOWdie - I'm trying to figure out how you saved the drawings from the Westerbeke site as DXF files. Do you mean they provide the DXF format drawings on their web site and I'm just not seeing them, or that you're doing the conversion from either the PDF file or even from images? If so, how are you doing the conversion?

Thanks!

[HOWdie]

I guess i should have explained that better. I've converted the bmp to a dxf using coreldraw. It makes for a lot of lines. After I imported them into rhino, I pasted the bmp. to the background and scaled it then, and lofted the lines using the bmp as the orientation page. It took some giggling but I got a pretty acurate model using this method, although it ended up at +6 mb.
I could pare it down by removing some of the bolt up patterns and various pipings, however, I wanted it to be as realistic as possible. Who knows one day, given premission by westebruke I could make some money with the model.

If you're looking for drawings of stern drives, you can download nice 2d AutoCad DWG format drawings from Konrad Marine at http://www.konradmarine.com/

Konrad used to only have the Alpha-like drive, a lower cost alternative to a Mercruiser drive, but now they also have the nice high performance 540 drive too!

[Jeff]

Thanks HOWdie - I thought that maybe I was just not seeing all the files available for download there.

I'm actually surprised that you were able to do anything with the BMP->DXF conversion from CorelDraw - I would have thought that it would result in so many short unjoined line segments that it would be easier to start from scratch.

It will be interesting to see which manufacturers start to supply 3D blocks for engines/drives/etc. in the near future. If more don't start supplying 3d data, then following this thread http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthr...p?threadid=233 maybe there is a future for some kind of model exchange where you could trade models (one engine that you've drawn for another that you need) or maybe sell marine blocks for a small fee to help cover the time you spent drawing them. Or maybe as modelers keep getting faster and faster to use, it will just be good practice for everyone to model their own collection. I’m guessing it took you at least a couple hours and more likely a few though…

[HOWdie]

You are correct in saying it "took a couple of hours" and nearly choked my old machine to death. But I am pleased with the results. The dxf conversion did end up with a lot of loose segments because of the manner in which the bmp translated. The major difficulty was my old machine in handling the various vector segments. But What the Hey! One item that might be of interest to others is " once you know the overall motor mount dia. and overall size the model can be scaled easily to suit your needs. I've included a quick render if your interested.

[Gades]

HOWdie: I have never used Rhino, so I don't know how it works. Did you use surface or solid modelling?

Because of your comment I'd think you've used parametric modelling, did you?

BTW, nice job.

[Polarity]

Wintopo makes a good job of this. Especially when I loaded the result into Rhino. Their basic SW is free with a more powerful Pro version : both here . Nothing to do with me I might add.

Cheers

Paul

[HOWdie]

Gades:

Rhino is a true NURBS b-spline modeler. I'm still using an aging beta issue. If I don't get my craft underway soon maybe i'll start full time modeling. Here is what i'm trying to put the engine in. Modeled in Rhino also.

[Gades]

HOWdie, so do you mean that you model with 3D surfaces, but they're parametric as well?

BTW, did you design the boat? it looks niceee...