TimAllenEquipment: How to make molehills out of mountains.

Ever notice how people around you seem to be consistently good at making mountains out of molehills?

I really enjoy doing the opposite.

Someone once asked me many years ago how I knew how to perform mechanical repairs on so many different things. My reply left them looking a little perplexed.

“These things may have different badges on them, but they all rely on the same few principles”.

• Pretty much everything is powered by either an electric motor or an internal combustion engine. Learn how those two things work.

• Those power supplies are all hooked to something that either moves up and down (or side to side), or in circles.

• The power is connected to those things by either belts, gears or a fluid connection. Apply what they teach in high school physics to those 3 things and you’ll cover most of it.

Things are getting more complex, but there really hasn’t been anything all that revolutionary. The internal combustion engine is the same as it has been since its inception. We control the fuel supply better through fuel injection, and we can adjust valve timing as well as ignition timing, but the motor is still pretty much the same.

The belts, gears and hydraulics (fluid power) are all more efficient due to better manufacturing and machining, but even those are pretty much the same.

What goes up and down or round and round may be machined better, balanced better, engineered stronger, but the movement is still the same.

Complexity all seems to revolve around making things operate more efficiently. Most of that is controlled electrically, so learn the principles of electricity and have some clue about what the computer is sensing and controlling. (hint, electricity is primarily used to make heat or magnetic fields).

Ok, now you know my secret. Is there some way to look at what you do and apply the same kind of logic? By breaking things down into the basics, all of the sudden they don’t seem as intimidating.

One might even say the mountains start to look more like molehills.

KISS – Keep it simply silly.