Technical Resources and Tips
In the course of making your project or product successful, you will have to draw on your team's combined knowledge, experience and talents as an engineer. But a good engineer also does not waste time 'reinventing the wheel' from scratch. There is a wealth of knowledge and resources available in the form of books,articles and videos on the internet and the UCDavis' Physical Sciences and Engineering Library. Here is a list of some of these resources that you may want to use:
UCDavis Library Resources¶
The Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) Library webpage provides you access to a vast collection of resources that may not be readily available on the internet ranging from full Books, eBooks, Journals, Databooks, Patents and Industry Standards. Many of these are available in digital form. Some may require you to use the Library VPN to sign in. We encourage you to make use of these university resources in your projects. Remember to cite your references in your reports. The above webpage also contains a citation guide.
General¶
- Engineering Subreddit - Great place to ask questions.
- EngineeringPorn Subreddit - Great place to get design ideas.
- Mechanical Gifs Subreddit - Animations of a variety of interesting machines.
Design Calculations and References¶
Engineering Toobox - Engineering information- Formulas, constants, calculators etc.
MIT Fundamentals of Design Spreadsheet - An extremely useful wealth of information and design spreadsheets on every design element
- Shaft and Bearing Design Resources:
- Design, Layout and Assembly - An excerpt from Shigley's Machine Design textbook with guidelines on good shaft design
- Shafts,Keys and Bearings Drawings and info on ways to put shafts,keys and bearings together
- MIT Power transmission - Page 44-57 has info on shafts
- How to choose a Bearing - Good resource on the steps required before selecting a bearing
MatWeb - Properties of various Materials
Machinery's Handbook - Reference text for Machinery design
- Clearance Hole Calculator (derived from the Machinery Handbook)
Wolfram Alpha - Math calculator and equation solver
MecMovie - A refresher on basic mechanics of materials
Making Technical Drawings¶
Here are a few resources and references for making your technical drawings package (your major deliverable) look professional and informative.
- ASME/ANSI Y14.5 Standards Please read from section 1.4 onwards to check if you are following the right dimensioning conventions defined in the standard.
Other ASME Y14 standards that define Lines and Lettering, sheet size and formats and Drawing Views are linked to below:
Other references:
- Standard Dimensioning and Tolerancing practices
- Dimensioning guidelines (Click on first search result 'Dimension Guidelines' ppt file)
- Making Drawing packages
- Drawing package example
- ANSI Y32.10 For Hydraulic Symbols
Software¶
- 3D CAD
- Onshape: Web-browser-based CAD software made by original authors of Solidworks. Works on all operating systems. Free (but limited) educational and personal accounts.
- FreeCAD: Open source parametric 3D CAD. Works on all operating systems.
- Fusion 360 (Autodesk): Free 3-year education license. Works on Mac and PC.
- Solidworks (Dassault Systems)
- https://www.vention.io/ : Online CAD system for 80/20-like design that ships parts next day.
2D CAD
- CAM
- ESPRIT (DP Technology)
- HSM (Autodesk)
- Electrical
- LT Spice (Linear Technology)
- Easy EDA (Website)
- Tinker CAD (Website)
- Ki-cad (Open-source Electrical Drawing Software)
Mechanisms and Movements¶
- Animated Mechanisms - A huge searchable youtube video list of thousands of mechanisms and movements.
- Kinematic mechanisms - CornellU
- 507 Mechanical Movements
- Mechanism collection -TU Delft
Manufacturing¶
- McMaster-Carr- Parts and Hardware
- GrabCAD- Free CAD model Library
- MIT Machining- Video lectures on using various machines in a machine shop
- Grainger- Tools and Hardware
- OpenBOM Bill of materials tracking
Electrical¶
- Digikey- Electronic parts
- All About Circuits Great resource for general information on building electric circuits
- DC Motor Selection guide- How to approach the problem of selecting DC motors
- Small DC motors- Selecting small DC motors
- Battery University
- 3D Printed power supply covers: https://www.thingiverse.com/troubadixx/collections/psu-cover/page:1
Standards¶
Library site - a well organized list of engineering standards available to UC Davis
- OSHA - A list of all topics that OSHA covers
- Machine Guarding pdf - machine guarding pdf
- Machine Guarding etool- machine guarding website same content as pdf
ASTM- A list of standards accessible by UCD, most are for testing but there is useful information
ASME- Mechanical Engineering Standards, payment required
- IEEE - Electronic Engineering Standards
- Electric Machinery- IEEE electric machinery standards
- NEMA - Electric Equipment and Medical Imaging Manufacturers Standards
- Motor Standards- NEMA motor and generator standards
Electrical E-Stops - NFPA 79:
9.2.5.3.1:“Each machine shall be equipped with a Category 0 stop”
- 9.2.2 : “Category 0 is an uncontrolled stop by immediately removing power”
9.2.5.4.1: ”Emergency stop functions provided in accordance with 9.2.5.3 shall be designed to be initiated by a single human action”
9.2.5.4.1.1:
- E-stop shall override all other functions
- Power should be removed from system ASAP
- Reset of E-stop should not initiate restart
Electrical Panels - NEC or NFPA 70:
- 110.10 : “The overcurrent protective devices … shall be selected ... to clear a fault to [without] extensive damage to the electrical equipment of the circuit”
- 409.21(B)(2): “[There shall be] a single main overcurrent protective device located within the industrial control panel”
- 409.110: Labeling requirements inside control panel
- 409.106: Wire Spacing:409.106: Wire Spacing