Chapter 76: Yes yes, it’s all trash

Translated by me, edited by drpetro.

A claw hammer was quickly handed over. If not for the leading engineer blocking him, then the worker with the claw hammer would have definitely smashed the master artisan off of the ladder.

Everyone, including Li Huaxing, wanted to smash the master artisan down.

But not just like that, right?

Their beyond perfect, treasured product, actually had nothing that was worthy of praise?

“Get down here!” The already rioting workers started to roar in rage.

“Get down, let’s compete for who has the best precision.”

The expression of indifference, of being unmoving, disappeared from the master artisan’s face.

Replacing it was a haughty, piercing, eagle-like stare, and an expression that looked down on everything.

Towards the raging workers, the master artisan spoke.

A single sentence that bombarded those rioting workers into utter silence.

“The truck girders on the two sides of truck, with just one look, I can tell that they have a straightness error of more than 0.07 millimeter per meter.

“A 12 meter long girder, what do you think it distorted to?”

“It freaking distorted into a goddamn lizard alright! Now tell me, is that an up to grade product?”

Everyone’s anger was completed stuffed back into everyone’s throats by a single sentence.

Straightness error on the girder……

The 12 meter long girder was a completely whole entity, and the bigger the component, the harder it was to machine. What the master artisan meant was that those two girders were completely distorted; not a single meter of it was straight.

What the master artisan said wasn’t wrong, the girder made by using large milling machines, naturally had a certain degree of precision error. When the girder was welded onto the chassis, that also increased the precision error because of the high temperature created during welding.

The error was clearly measureable by the workers, but it was also contained within a certain margin, so the workers felt that it wouldn’t cause any negative impact to the vehicle.

But how was the old man able to see it?

Leading engineer Wong Caiqi was completely embarrassed. Him understanding the error was one thing, but having it pointed out by someone else was something completely different.

Although it doesn’t feel like a problem, but the error was seriously too big. If this was any regular car, then it can already hit the junkyard.

They wanted to know, but the master artisan didn’t give them a chance to ask at all.

“Now let’s take a look at your casing for the engine reducer housing, is that really round? If I were to draw a random circle, it would still be more precise than that.”

“This is just too much of a joke. Now look at the distance between the screw holes you guys made on the reducer, it freaking huge! Why is it like that? To save money? Or to save time?” The master artisan waved the claw hammer in his hands: “I can guarantee that within a year, the reducer housing will start leaking oil.”

“This is basically trash, a piece of garbage designed with zero experience.”

The reducer housing was made with foundry iron, it was just that the size of the piece was really big. Furthermore, the reducer gears inside couldn’t come in contact with the housing case, hence its rough level of precision……

As long as the precision of the hole connecting it and the position of the link to the engine crankshaft was controlled, plus the designed error margin from the very beginning, any of the remaining space would be left for the lubrication oil.

If this was coming from the efficiency point of view, then leading engineer Wong Caiqi felt no wrongs with the design.

A mining haul truck was filled with different parts, due to time and profit margin reasons, simplifying the important steps as much as possible, was an untold method used by all factories.

But!

A sentence from the master artisan, suddenly made Wong Caiqi realise that he made an overwhelmingly novice, and at the same time, a very classic doctrine error.

He used the 190 tonnage reducer design on the 240 tonnage ones, that was perfectly fine.

However, he actually used the original 48 screw sealed design on the 240 tonnage reducer without any changes at all.

An increase in size, meant an increase in the distance between the same number of screws.

An increase in distance, naturally meant a decrease in tightness. As time passed, the sealing chamber would experience severe abrasion, and create a very common problem with all Made in China products —– leaking oil.

Everyone who was present was sweating cold bullets. Leading engineer Wong Caiqi was completely pale, and pulled out his notepad from his jacket, and shudderingly recorded down the gargantuas error.

When he hurriedly jotted down the error in a way that only he could understand, Wong Caiqi fiercely wiped off some of his cold sweat and let out a long sigh of relief.

Then turning around to take a look, he found that everyone actually pulled out either a notepad or their phone, and were all recording the fatal flaw down with lingering fears.

It could be said that, if it wasn’t the master artisan coming over as a consultant today, then they would only be able to find out about this tiny flaw years after the product had been delivered and in use by the client. When that time came, they would bombard customer service with inquiries, and only then could the engineers try to figure out the problem.

But by then, their reputation would be tarnished, and they would be given the titles of unreliable, leaking, failed designs and so on.

The more complex a product was, from designing to a final mature product, all steps required a series of improvements, and endless amounts of patches, before it could be perfected.

As such, a single sentence from the master artisan directly had them skip over a major hurdle.

“Now look at your hydraulic lift, 4 lifts placed this close, are you guys looking to poke through the driver’s cage?”

“Now look at the turner, go get a ruler and measure its gap for me……”

“Now look at the suspensions……”

The master artisan standing on top of the controls, without pausing or stopping, every words he said, right now in the ears of everyone below, all changed into the world’s best set of sounds.

Even those sentences that started with trash and ended with sub par, all became comforting.

Right now, they had all changed from their previous disdain into unwavering admiration that would be unchanging even with 10 oxens pulling on it.

*Scribble scribble scribble*

That was the sound of several engineers jotting down notes on their notepads.

They had already forgotten about the meaning behind the words trash, sub-par, and the likes, as they recorded them down word by word.

Li Huaxing, honestly, didn’t escape the scolding either. Rather, he was standing beside an engineer, examining each recorded word, and preparing to make a copy of it for himself when this was all over.

“Isn’t…… Isn’t he a gate watcher……?” The thunderstuck bodyguard was completely flabbergasted, his brain right now was a mush that even Bill Gates wouldn’t be able to sort through.

“Now look at the power system you’ve designed. I can only use garbage to describe it, the gear shift’s direct current can clearly……”

“*cough cough ~ cough cough ~ *” As soon as Ye Qing heard that the master artisan actually wanted to go through the truck’s core systems, like the power transmission system, he immediately reminded him to tread the waters lightly.

The master artisan’s sudden quietness, had everyone who had already prepared their ears for the incoming lesson immediately turn anxious.

“Master please continue!” The worker who previously thought of smashing the master artisan, had already turned into someone who was even better than a ‘too good’ student, as he actually recorded everything the master artisan said on video.

“Master, please continue, don’t stop please.” Leading engineer Wong Caiqi right now was climbing up the worker ladder, to try to get closer to the master to receive his enlightenment.

“Master please continue, what other flaws does this garbage product have? Please enlighten us!”

“Yes yes!” Many of the workers below nodded furiously; their anger from before, had disappeared before they knew it.

What international joke was this, this respect deserving old man, was definitely a world leading expert. What’s more was that, it was very likely for him to have been in a top level position at the Caterpillar Group, a single sentence from him, could easily make up for decades of blind work.

“There’s just too much trash to go through.” The master artisan commented, then walked along the sidewalk wide chassis, and arrived at the back of the super big of power transformer.

A silvery white drive axle that was a meter thick, 8 meter long, bright as a mirror, appeared in front of the master artisan.

The master artisan jumped onto of the generator, and slammed the claw hammer straight onto that large drive axle.

*Dangggg ~*

A very clear, melodious metal sound resonated in everyone’s ears.

No one attempted to speak, some even went as far as to stop breathing.

Because the master artisan, closed his eyes, and used his hands to help him listen to the resonating echoes.

When the melodious echoes disappeared, the master artisan jumped to the other side and hit the drive axle again.

“This can also be called drive axle? This here has internal injuries, the problem’s right there.”

The master artisan with an expression full of resentment, stared at those waiting workers and engineers, and said: “Such a garbage drive axle, who was responsible for making it?”

Including Li Huaxing, everyone’s eyes turned to an engineer in a grey uniform.

They had already been brainwashed by the master artisan to believe without question. With a claw hammer alone, he could tell of the existence of internal injuries in the drive axle. Who else could do such a godly feat?

“Boss…… Me……” The not so old engineer with a flushed face stuttered on: “The precision of the drive axle…… Has no problem, I can guarantee.”

“Every step made by the workers were all meticulously overseen and checked, the precision will not…… have any problem.”

“Master Qiao!” Leading engineer Wong Caiqi right now couldn’t help but pull on his silver white hair and be puzzled: “If the precision of the axle isn’t enough, then it should lock up and not be able to move at all. So then how come it’s still able to move 10 some kilometers?”

“You guy’s requirement for precision, is seriously despairingly low……” The master artisan shook his head.

“But the problem isn’t with the precision level, as it has reached the minimum requirement for being able to move.”

“The material is too trash, the method used to make it is too garbage, rubbish tempering.” The master artisan rubbed his hands on the axle: “The DC current in the middle of the axle, will produce residual heat during operation, thus leading to light heat expansion of the drive axle.”

“You guys definitely didn’t consider heat expansion parameters during designing, and highly overestimated the quality of this power transformer.”

Heat…… heat expansion parameters……

Wong Chaiqi, as if having been struck by lightning, had his body tremble uncontrollably; even more so than those Xuan Xia characters who just had a major breakthrough.

Waking up with just one word!

No wonder it operated fine when it started up, but got locked up after around 10 kilometers.

When they got the haul truck back into the workshop to be taken apart and examined, the temperature of the drive axle would’ve dissipated a long time ago, so naturally there was no way for them to find out about it.

When making the 190 tonnage trucks, all necessary parts were ordered from foreign makers, so of course this problem never popped up.

The self designed 240 tonnage trucks still used the same materials as the 190 tonnage trucks, then the root of all their problems would naturally be the power transformer.

As long as future designs included ways to expel the heat from the power transformer, then the lock up problem was easily fixed.

So it was like this. Who would’ve thought.

Large mining haul trucks all used their engines to help the power generator generate large amount of electricity to move the drive axle through the power transformer.

The power transformer used for the 190 tonnage mining haul trucks, must be different from the ones used on the 240 tonnage ones.

Then all that was needed was to redesign the power transformer……

But how to redesign it……

Just as Wong Caiqi prepared to bust his brains, and pull out his hairs, he suddenly fiercely slapped his leg.

In front of world class masters, he was actually thinking of redesigning the power transformer by myself……

Haha ~

It was just that this time the chairman will have to cough up a lot!