One reader of The Automata / Automaton Blog wrote to me with an interesting question. "I'm looking for a simple mechanism to convert rotational motion to reciprocal motion along the SAME axis as the rotation, not perpendicular."
I decided to investigate potential solutions in one of my favorite books on mechanisms, Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important in Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines... (Astragal Press, 1995).
I once made the assumption that one of the mechanisms in this book was drawn to scale from a top view. I put the book on a photocopier, scaled the drawing up to the size I needed and transferred the drawing to my pieces of wood.
Needless to say, when the pieces were cut out and the mechanism tested it was way, way off. It simply would not work.
A word to the wise: some redrawing should be factored in if you plan to use images right from the book.
Posted by: Austringer on March 31, 2008 at 6:34 PM
The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL) is like this book for the web. Lots of pictures of beutiful old models and videos of them (and new ones made with a 3-D printer) in action.
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The book can be found for free on google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TFwOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Five+Hundred+and+Seven+Mechanical+Movements&ei=yjTxR5PVHY-KzQTSldnHCw
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I once made the assumption that one of the mechanisms in this book was drawn to scale from a top view. I put the book on a photocopier, scaled the drawing up to the size I needed and transferred the drawing to my pieces of wood.
Needless to say, when the pieces were cut out and the mechanism tested it was way, way off. It simply would not work.
A word to the wise: some redrawing should be factored in if you plan to use images right from the book.
Regards,
Dug North
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The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL) is like this book for the web. Lots of pictures of beutiful old models and videos of them (and new ones made with a 3-D printer) in action.
http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/model.php?m=359
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I have a copy of this book and I've long thought someone could make a great screensaver that cycled through the different mechanical movements.
You'd have to have a lot of free time on your hands though.
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