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Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

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11–20 of 67 posts

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#11
Mechanical linkages are fun. There's a nice collection of them at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, left over from the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition. I used to have a Russian textbook on mechanism design with over a thousand of them. It was all drawings; you didn't really need a translation.

This guy must really like spending time in Autodesk Inventor. (I just spent an evening getting some robot parts to fit in there. I'll machine them on a CNC mill on Monday, and they will fit. Which is the whole point of Inventor.)

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#12
These are amazing !

I already have a use for the limited space door at home, and I want to build the Archimedian Drive just because it is beautiful.

This also says something to me about the value of human determination - a retired professor in Vietnam must be old enough to have been an adult during the American involvement in their wars, and crushing poverty their state was left in, still a professorship and a desire to teach the world is left.

Hats off indeed

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#14
post #5

Pay attention. If you ever get sent back in time, this information will be important. You can make a fortune with this and the ability to create a solar oven to boil sea salt for salt (that's the seed money right there).

Wouldn't it be easier to make the fortune with the time machine I already have in this hypothetical scenario :-)?

Not all time travel scenarios leave you with a time machine. The machine might itself be trapped in a closed time-like loop, could have a fixed end-point.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a classic example.

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#15

These are amazing ! I already have a use for the limited space door at home, and I want to build the Archimedian Drive just because it is beautiful. This also says something to me about the value of human determination - a retired professor in Vietnam must be old enough to have been an adult during the American involvement in their wars, and crushing poverty their state was left in, still a professorship and a desire…

I really don't want this comment to go somewhere weird, but... I think the experience of war sharpens the desire to see the world made a better place. Most people come out of the darkness of war and see the value of life, and this often permeates their attitude in how they want to leave the world. I think war brings out the altruism in people.

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#17
post #16

Seeing this leaves me incredibly dissatisfied with the state of Wikipedia. This is what it should be about. Using rich media to explain and fascinate. Instead we get 10.000 words on the history of Anime.

You have to remember that anyone can write (maybe not write well, but can write). Not too many people can use AutoCAD and ever fewer have enough knowledge to be pumping out one a day like this guy.

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#18

Amazing. Now I'm left to wonder what all these contraptions are good for. For example, why would one use something like this "Persian joint": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFoiSRWdW5E ?

Some time ago i talked with a machine designer - and he told me that the industry is moving away from complex mechanical contraptions , into microcontrolers coupled with smart motors(servo - either linear or rotary) which allow exact controlled positioning.

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#19
post #16

Seeing this leaves me incredibly dissatisfied with the state of Wikipedia. This is what it should be about. Using rich media to explain and fascinate. Instead we get 10.000 words on the history of Anime.

You have to remember that anyone can write (maybe not write well, but can write). Not too many people can use AutoCAD and ever fewer have enough knowledge to be pumping out one a day like this guy.

Imagine if wiki spent their money on building tools to allow people to create multimedia content for the site.

AutoCAD models are an extreme case, but how about a tool to make quick vector drawings, or a tool to make flow charts to explain complex concepts. All right there in the wiki interface. All super easy to use. 10x-ing content creation.

Re: Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

#20
post #5

Pay attention. If you ever get sent back in time, this information will be important. You can make a fortune with this and the ability to create a solar oven to boil sea salt for salt (that's the seed money right there).

Wouldn't it be easier to make the fortune with the time machine I already have in this hypothetical scenario :-)?

It would actually be a time-space machine if you didn't plan on suffocating.

http://i.imgur.com/o4CJS2w.png

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