some suggestions...?

[Heimo]

So.... those of you who have read my intro thread, may have noticed that I am currently studying computer programming, now I am looking for some suggestions for some basic applications that this community might find handy, I am thinking along the lines of a basic unites converter or perhaps a refractory volume calculator something along those lines would be ideal... I know there are already a refractory volume calculator out there made by Adam Ziegler, but I am wanting to do this more because I could use some practice before I start to go rusty, secondly I hate creating useless apps just for practice so I would rather create something we all can use.
also I should add that I am still in the command line interface stage so all the apps I create are running out of command prompt.

So any ideas/requests anyone?

[Harry]

How about air calculations. I set up a spredsheet to calculate air flow/speed through an orifice by orifice size and air pressure for cfm. Also things like how many cfm at XX psi can you get from a tank of XXX cf that is pressurized to XXX psi before it drops to XX psi (high and low cycle of your compressor).

[Heimo]

that is a excellent suggestion, but I would need to understand those calculations myself before I can start, so I am going to try and find the math on how to do those calculations then I will give it a shot...

[Jim72]

How about a shrink rule calculator for commonly casted metals, aluminum, brass, bronze? I would find that helpful. Enter the actual or desired measurement and adjust for shrink accordingly for pattern making.

Jim

[Harry]

I found this page very helpful Heimo.

[Heimo]

I found this page very helpful Heimo.

thanks for that one, that is at least part of what I am looking for...

@JIm72 that is also a very good idea...

[Nudge]

I must say I like jim's idea 1+ for me

[4cylndrfury]

I lik jims idea...very helpful! Right now, i just kinda "wing it".

[Harry]

There is a lot of free 2d cad programs out there and I would think any of them would scale. Shrink is just a simple percent based calculation though and easy enough to do on a regular calculator a = A - (A*.02) or a = A*.98 to get a 2% shrink number. The air calculations you really got to get your head around.

Another thing I thought would be cool was an alloy calculator where you have two known elements. Say you have 1000 pennies (here in the US they would be copper or copper and zinc). You would weigh them and submerge them into water to get the mass then the calculator would tell you what the ratio of copper to zinc was.

[Heimo]

Well since a small shrinkage calculator ain't too much of a undertaking, I quickly threw one together.
you can download it here http://www.mediafire.com/file/d4av47vbm ... nkCalc.zip
also please keep in mind that this will only work on windows and if it does not work you need the .NET framework 3 or later for it to work

further notes:
when you insert a length, insert only the number, do not add a " , mm or cm at the back this will cause the program to crash since it is designed to only work if you insert a number

screenshot:

also the air calculator is coming as soon as I fully understand the math behind it....