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Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations

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21–30 of 67 posts

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

#21

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.

Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief and reflecting a lot.

But anyway, how about that rack and pinion animation! Finally I get why it's so effective at safely pulling an old steam train up a steep slope. I honestly was foggy on how the continuous engine motion translated into alternating cycles of locking and linear motion. So simple though.

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

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief and reflecting a lot. But anyway, how about that rack and pinion animation! Finally I get why it's so effective at safely pulling an old steam train up a steep slope. I honestly was fog…

> Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief and reflecting a lot.

Not a war docu, but still eye opening. A 1969 documentary about a boy leaving his hair-dressing apprenticeship to join the British army.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jrhv0

> First transmitted in 1968, documentary following Martin May, an apprentice ladies hairdresser, who decides to join 'a man's world' - the Junior Leaders Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps. The programme follows him as he begins his training with a group of recruits.

This boy, Martin May, is only 15 when he joins.

(I have no idea if BBC iPlayer programmes are viewable outside the UK. There's probably some method to do so).

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

#23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Sun is the center of the Universe. Interesting.

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

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That doesn't make much sense. There's no absolute "space" coordinates. Why would a time machine pick some random frame of reference instead of yours? I suppose you're correct, in a tautological sense.

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

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your Anime example presents a problem. Anime can't be whipped up quickly with such tools, or it would be low quality.

And to get past the rights issues with including fine examples of Anime on Wikipedia, would be an uphill battle.

I sort of understand what you're saying, but Wikipedia is only part of the puzzle of information. That's why we have the "Internet"!

It's perfectly fine to link out to Youtube videos or channels from a Wikipedia page about mechanical systems or CAD specific topics.

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

#26
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief and reflecting a lot. But anyway, how about that rack and pinion animation! Finally I get why it's so effective at safely pulling an old steam train up a steep slope. I honestly was fog…

> Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief and reflecting a lot. Not a war docu, but still eye opening. A 1969 documentary about a boy leaving his hair-dressing apprenticeship to join the British army. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pro…

Thx for link. Yes anyone who gives in to geo-blocking these days is a bit behind the times!

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

#27
post #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.

This is certainly true in general. I see a niche for the mechanical solution if reliability is a primary goal and there is a (not too complex) gear that can solve your problem.

About ten year ago I worked in project that designed a solar tracker. These trackers need to be cheap and reliable. Every hour an mechanic spends in a remote location is incredibly expensive and cuts into your yield very fast.

Interestingly there is a gear that can follow the path of the sun very well while being driven by motor with constant speed [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NGSL--PmGY

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

#29
post #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 pa…

Do you remember the name of the Russian book?

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

#30
This is amazing, like a code repo for mechanical programming. You have a number of common libraries here such as planetary clutches, along with a variety of solutions to common problems like how to convert between straight and circular motion.

In fact just like in coding where you have common issues like how to do an associative array, you have common issues in mech like how do I keep something pointing the same direction.

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