AI Van

Inevitable I suppose, but slightly scary that ChatGPT has now contributed to my van build.

I'm installing the Air Lift Loadlifter 5000 Ultimate air bags and their WirelessAir on board compressor system with 2 gallon air tank. These allow us to adjust the stiffness of the rear suspension as the weight of the van increases with the build. They can also be used to help level the van when parked for the night (left/right, front/rear). Lastly it will be handy having compressed air for the bike tires - and the van tires in an emergency or some traction event we need to air down the tires and then back up again.

The bags went in yesterday - pretty uneventful. Before and after shots. Note the lift blocks under the leaf springs and on top of the factory bump stop - these are from the Transit Trail option. I added the Air Lift 2" universal spacer blocks to the air bags since the spacer cylinder above the factory bump stump had to come out.

After taking lots of measurements and staring under the back end of the van, decided on a final mounting location for the small 2 gallon air tank. There are two minor frame members that I can drill some rivnuts into and the span across them is 18”. Tank mounting holes are 9.5” apart at the widest. So I need to fabricobble a metal mounting plate to bolt into place. Local home or farm implement stores don’t have anything that long. Was going to order some stock stuff from speedymetals, but a rough estimate on sendcutsend was the same price and they could do it exactly as I want - why not have them put the holes in it I figure?

But then I need a drawing file to upload which might take a bit....

Pulled up OpenSCAD and started poking around. It’s “difference” thing was confusing (at least at 12:30am). Pulled up ChatGPT and described my need:

Write an OpenSCAD program for an 18.125” by 6” rectangle with rounded corners using a radius of 7 with holes offset from each corner by 1"

It’s first shot was really good. I had it tweak a few things - had to tell it to "fix the origin so all dimensions were positive in x and y” as the rounded corners were offsetting the whole part a little into negative space. Then had it add the 4 mounting holes on the inside using further offset language.

Copy and paste and tweaked a few dimensions - which was trivial to do because the ChatGPT written code used well documented and named variables at the top.

Bam - export to STL, upload to sendcutsend.com, and in a week or so I’ll have a perfect rust proof, aluminum 6061 mounting plate in hand. I choose 3/16” for a plate thickness to give it a bit more beef. 1/4" seemed overkill and got pricey. $67.92 including shipping.

Here's what the plate looks like in OpenSCAD - and the CAD model ChatGPT wrote.