10 ms·
Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements
- valtron 13y ago19 - 22: Am I reading this right? Exponential reduction of the power required? I gotta try this.
- NhanH 13y agoIt should be exponential reduction of force required, but the length is longer, so the same work.
- alexjeffrey 13y agothis is beautiful; this will definitely come in handy when I start machining...
- iandanforth 13y agoIf you like this kind of thing and you haven't run across the Equation of Time cam from the clock of the long now, take a moment and check it out: http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10000718-7.html http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10000718-7.html
- tzs 13y agoFor those who like printed books, Dover has an inexpensive edition of the underlying book [1]. There are many similar books, such as "A Victorian Handbook of Mechanical Movements" [2], and "1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances" [3]. [1] http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-Devices/dp/0486443604/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-De... [2] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486498123 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486498123 [3] http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Movements-Devices-Appliances-Science/dp/0486457435/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_6 http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Movements-Devices-Appliance...
- justincormack 13y agoOriginals are not hugely expensive eg http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8114327784&searchurl=bt.x%3D-471%26amp%3Bbt.y%3D-292%26amp%3Bsortby%3D1%26amp%3Btn%3D507%2Bmechanical%2Bmovements http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=811432778...
- trafficlight 13y agoPeople are so damn clever.
- samstave 13y agoI am always in lovee with inventions, especially ones where they are complex or extremely massive/heavy, where they were done without modern computers. I find that the amount of large scale steel industrial works, done before our current era are incredible. The fact that these movements, visualized in the mind - then described in 2D, drawn by hand, are fascinating.
- lkbm 13y agoHere's a YouTube video that shows some of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQ2pXkYjRM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQ2pXkYjRM
- jvehent 13y agoThat kind of stuff, is why I've always wanted to be an engineer. In my mind, I visualize arrangements of systems and networks exactly the same way as these. Building stuff, pressing the "On' button, and seeing it all work is just the best feeling in the world.
- gruseom 13y agoThis looks like a wonderful thing. But I can't see any animations! What am I missing? Edit: ah, only the color diagrams are animated. The top of the page links to a blurb about that.
- pella 13y ago"Look for the color thumbnails. They identify the completed animations. Use the prev and next links (above right) to browse the thumbnail pages" http://507movements.com/mm_140.html http://507movements.com/mm_140.html
- gruseom 13y agoThanks! Your comment and my edit must have been posted concurrently.
- tinyProton 13y agoIs there any software that would allow one to easily build and simulate these kind of mechanical movements?
- roryokane 13y agoYes: Algodoo (http://www.algodoo.com/ http://www.algodoo.com/), a 2D physics playground. It used to cost money, but now it’s free.
- allannienhuis 13y agothat is fantasic - thanks for the link!
- tinyProton 13y agoWow, that's amazing. Thanks for sharing.
- alxndr 13y agoJust downloaded that and started playing around -- fantastic. I need to force myself to go to bed.
- chasing 13y agoI'm much more excited about watching all of these little mechanical animations on a Saturday night than I ought to be...
- ChuckMcM 13y agoFWIW, these are great fun to print out on a 3D printer and play with.
- hugs 13y agoIs there a library of ready-to-print STLs for this? If not, I know my next Thingiverse upload! :-)
- lalc 13y agoReally cute mechanism in http://507movements.com/mm_123.html http://507movements.com/mm_123.html The little pins hit the V in the center gear and cause it to shift to the other gear. Neat!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- hfsktr 13y agoSome of these I had to see animated to even grasp what it might do. Even then I couldn't figure out what use it might be. A couple of them describe stuff that used it but most were just technical details. It would be nice if there was a link to something that used it so you could see why it was ever made (or maybe some of these are just for fun). I couldn't get through them all but will come back because it's fun to watch. More fun than it should be really. edit: example of one that has me guessing why it exists: http://507movements.com/mm_115.html http://507movements.com/mm_115.html
- bluemetal 13y agoFor number 115: by moving the bigger piece side to side you spin the two wheels. Each wheel spins the same amount but in opposite directions. Shafts attached to those wheels can be used to drive components that need to move equally but in different directions.
- hfsktr 13y agoPerfect! I couldn't have even visualized that. I just saw gears and didn't even think about a rod off that. Another thing that would be interesting is to know when some of these came about (some are older than people might think [1]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odometer#Ancient_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odometer#Ancient_China
- jdswain 13y agoYou probably have one of these if you have a printer. It's basically the same mechanism as on the output paper guides, that causes a movement of the guide on one side to match the other side, and for the paper path to therefore remain centred. Normally you can take the output tray off and turn it over to see the mechanism.
- memset 13y agoIn a similar vein, here is a video from the US Navy in the 1950s which describes how mechanical computers work (for calculating trajectories of missiles being shot from ships.) Utterly fascinating to see how very simple mechanical devices, like differing gear ratios, can be used to calculate things like logarithms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM
- bigiain 13y agoFor Bay Area folk (or visitors), there's a restored mechanical targeting computer at the SF88 Nike Missile base in the Marin Headlands http://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm http://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm Highly worth a visit if you're interested in this sort of mechanical computing stuff…
- ealloc 13y agoFascinating, an analog computer. Reading about it on wikipedia, it seems analog computers have been almost completely forgotten in the digital age. It makes me wonder what kind of analog computer would be possible now with 21st century technology, especially because of discoveries in condensed matter. For example, could an electrical analog system be a way of carrying out large-time molecular dynamics simulations? With proper tuning of the material, might you be able to create arbitrary potentials between the electrons within it so that they would interact roughly like atoms in an MD simulation? Or, perhaps you could create an analog chip where the electrons would 'naturally' solve various NP-hard problems, effectively by brute force?
- jonmrodriguez 13y agoBased on your comment, I did a little searching for the terms (single electron circuit) and found this interesting document. Maybe it's the kind of thing you're talking about: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/suppl/10.1142/p650/suppl_file/p650_chap01.pdf http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/suppl/10.1142/p650/suppl_... -- For a completely different portrayal of futuristic mechanical computers, check out Neal Stephenson's story The Diamond Age. It's set in an era of nanotech, and the computers are nanoscale clockwork computers.
- jpalioto 13y agoClicked thinking I was going to be introduced to a new startup with a pretty cool name ... actual mechanical movements not bad either, however.
- noisy_boy 13y agohttp://507movements.com/mm_089.html http://507movements.com/mm_089.html Warning: Hypnotic.
- franzay 13y agoThe animation for http://507movements.com/mm_349.html http://507movements.com/mm_349.html is actually a bit misleading, since there are two degrees of freedom: the lateral movements of the lower and upper halves are independent.
- chernevik 13y agoOkay, stupid questions. - To what extent are mechanical engineers using these sorts of things? - Are there texts discussing the design / selection / integration of movements to perform particular tasks? - Are there are texts like that targeting application to Arduino driven robotics? Mindstorms?
- uxp 13y agoI'm a trained watchmaker. I use, fix and sometimes build many of these as components of watch movements. [1] Is what I know as a Geneva Drive. Back before we had fancy alloy springs and were forced to use Steel as the material for mainsprings because that's all we knew, watches had problems where a freshly wound watch would run fast and a watch that hasn't been wound for a day or so would start to run slow, as the strength of the spring tapered off. The Geneva Drive was a solution, though it's more of a hack, to only let the spring release power inside the middle of it's power arc, by preventing the watch from unwinding past a certain low point and preventing the user from winding the spring up to it's strongest point. [2] This is a simple Heart Cam. Mechanical Chronographs (Stopwatches) use these to reset the chronograph runner to zero. A hammer, represented as the horizontal pin, is released from a caught position with spring tension on it, which slams into the heart cam and forces it to reset to a predetermined position. Incredibly simple design. No matter where the hammer slams down on the cam, it is guaranteed to reset to the same place. (It's also a golden ratio) [3] This is basically the design of a modern instantaneous date wheel. The snail-cam ("D" looking thing) is generally affixed loosely on the gear. The worm gear drives the flat gear, naturally, which catches the snail-cam and drives it forward. As the cam rotates, it slowly raises up the hammer, which has tension provided by the spring. At a defined point, the hammer reaches the apex of the snail-cam and (since the cam is affixed loosely and is allowed some circular freedom) slams forward "instantaneously". The cam will usually have a finger that then flicks forward a date wheel. [4] Fusee Chain. Similarly to the reasons behind the Geneva cross (loss of power as a spring unwinds), we developed the Fusee chain to compensate for the loss of power by acting like a transmission in a car. As the spring unwinds, it uncoils the chain from the spiral wheel, which in turn will have a high-torque output at first (~ 1:1 ratio), and slowly increase revolution while decreasing power. These were highly present in English watches, but are no longer produced (as we have fancy alloys that alleviate all of the necessity of these things) [5] A Verge Escapement. Another long-forgotten mechanism. Escapements are the things that regulate the output of circular motion. It's basically a ratchet-and-pawl mechanism. You'll generally have an oscillator (like a pendulum) attached to the lateral verge which rocks the teeth back and forth, the drive train then tries to move the escape-wheel forward, but the verge only allows one tooth to pass per vibration (a vibration is one half oscillation). The "Swiss Escapement" has largely replaced this mechanism. [6] This is essentially the same thing. [7] The Cylinder Escapement. In the 60's the Swiss freaked out because the Japanese started producing cheap, disposable watch movements. The result of this was a huge loss of Swiss watch companies as they struggled to compete. One of the ideas they came up with was to produce a large number of cheap watches, but they couldn't just drop prices, they also had to retool and drop quality, substantially. The cylinder escapement was not a new invention in the 60's, but it started to get a lot of use around then. On a personal note, these are terrible things. They were designed to be disposable, and subsequently were marketed to kids quite often. This is where a number of the Ingersoll watches came from (like the old Mickey Mouse watches). The original ones that are worth more than most startups in Mountain View are cylinder watches, and finding one that runs is the equivalent of founding a Facebook for watch collectors. [8] This is how it works when looking at it interacting with it's escape wheel. [9] The Swiss Lever Escapement. B is the pallet, D is the oscillator (Balance Wheel). Escapements essentially work all the same. They're mostly just renditions of one idea. The swiss lever escapement was up until the mid 2000's practically the only escapement produced in wristwatches. The pallet stones have since been upgraded to be synthetic ruby, along with the majority of the other bearing surfaces in watches, since the introduction of this book, however. [10] This is what I'd call a Daniels Escapement, or Co-Axial Escapement. If you've looked at an Omega watch since the mid 2000's (as referenced above), you've probably heard about the Co-Axial Escapement. This is what it looks like. It's much more complicated than any of the other escapements, and has whole books written about it, and yet is the simplest mechanism once you figure out how it ticks. It quite literally only touches the oscillator once an oscillation. All the previous escapements are required to touch the oscillator twice (once going up, once coming back down). This is literally the difference between a tick and a tock. This only ticks, it has no tock. The less interaction the pallet has with the oscillator means that there is less energy lost in it's oscillation, and helps with both accuracy and longevity (they wear out less, and can run longer per wind). [11] This is a rotary Wankel engine, like the Mazda RX. Not a watch part, but still a "modern device" [1] http://507movements.com/mm_212.html http://507movements.com/mm_212.html [2] http://507movements.com/mm_097.html http://507movements.com/mm_097.html [3] http://507movements.com/mm_064.html http://507movements.com/mm_064.html [4] http://507movements.com/mm_046.html http://507movements.com/mm_046.html [5] http://507movements.com/mm_234.html http://507movements.com/mm_234.html [6] http://507movements.com/mm_302.html http://507movements.com/mm_302.html [7] http://507movements.com/mm_294.html http://507movements.com/mm_294.html [8] http://507movements.com/mm_295.html http://507movements.com/mm_295.html [9] http://507movements.com/mm_296.html http://507movements.com/mm_296.html [10] http://507movements.com/mm_313.html http://507movements.com/mm_313.html [11] http://507movements.com/mm_425.html http://507movements.com/mm_425.html
- _ZeD_ 13y agoOh damnit! Now I miss my lego technic sets!
- dfbrown 13y agoThis reminded me of a recent paper on automatically designing animated mechanical characters. Some of these movements could be used to incorporate different kinds of animations into these characters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfznnKUwywQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfznnKUwywQ
- emhart 13y agoBack in the early 1900s there were a handful of people making physical models of a number of these movements (and some that went beyond this incredible collection). They occasionally tour, Boston's Museum of Science had a big show of William M. Clark's collection back in 2006, I think. Anyway, Cornell has "The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library" where they try to keep track of all of these physical models: http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/collection-toc.php http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/collection-toc.php