While looking for information about straight line mechanisms (which I'm thinking about using in one of my non-Bessler related experimental test devices, btw), I stumbled across a really nice pdf file dealing with mechanical linkages. Since Google didn't give me the link to the referring page for the file, I had to trace its listing back to the following MIT webpage:
http://web.mit.edu/2.75/fundamentals/FUNdaMENTALS.html
This page seems to have plenty of nice resources relating to invention and design including pdf files of course lectures, spreadsheets with design equations for various mechanisms, and youtube and other videos of the course lectures.
I've watched the first youtube video, and the lecturer talked about creativity and the need to "play" in coming up with design ideas amongst other things. I believe he also said that in the course they would be addressing ideas as to how to improve a commercial drill press as a specific example of design process.
Anyway, I hope others might find the information here interesting too. I at least have some more videos to watch as I procrastinate with my other stuff!
Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
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Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
Nice !
If only to put those video's up in the background so you can do some subliminal motivational learning while doing other stuff. Making the most out of those moments of procrastination... oh wait.
If only to put those video's up in the background so you can do some subliminal motivational learning while doing other stuff. Making the most out of those moments of procrastination... oh wait.
Marchello E.
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-- May the force lift you up. In case it doesn't, try something else.---
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
;P
There really does seem to be some nice information there.
The following web page that I've recently found is pretty nice, also. It has the text from an 1877 book entitled How to Draw a Straight Line: A Lecture on Linkages by Alfred Bray Kempe. Someone has gone to the trouble of animating most of the mechanisms originally depicted in the book (one of which I may soon be using, too, though not for a Bessler related device).
Others may find these mechanisms useful and/or inspiring.
http://zadachi.mccme.ru/kempe.ver2/
Here's a frame from one of the animations:
Someone at the following site made a stool using the above mechanism.
http://woodmod.livejournal.com/7736.html
Dwayne
There really does seem to be some nice information there.
The following web page that I've recently found is pretty nice, also. It has the text from an 1877 book entitled How to Draw a Straight Line: A Lecture on Linkages by Alfred Bray Kempe. Someone has gone to the trouble of animating most of the mechanisms originally depicted in the book (one of which I may soon be using, too, though not for a Bessler related device).
Others may find these mechanisms useful and/or inspiring.
http://zadachi.mccme.ru/kempe.ver2/
Here's a frame from one of the animations:
Someone at the following site made a stool using the above mechanism.
http://woodmod.livejournal.com/7736.html
Dwayne
I don't believe in conspiracies!
I prefer working alone.
I prefer working alone.
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
The kinematic model library at Cornell is really nice, too! Others have given the link to this in the past, but I don't think it hurts to reference it again.
http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/model.php?m=reuleaux
http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/model.php?m=reuleaux
I don't believe in conspiracies!
I prefer working alone.
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
Furcurequs
Thanks for posting this. It is really a nice shift to the scissor jack approach. I'll have to play with it if I get some time.
Thanks for posting this. It is really a nice shift to the scissor jack approach. I'll have to play with it if I get some time.
"Our education can be the limitation to our imagination, and our dreams"
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
You're welcome.
I'll probably soon be using a Chebyshev approximate straight line mechanism in a test device I'm getting ready to build. Again, though, this will be for something that is not Bessler and/or gravity related.
I used some cardboard and furniture nails last night to try to make a quick mock up of one of the more complicated true straight line mechanisms, but I quickly saw that it was likely too complicated for my needs. ...not to mention it didn't really work very well with the flexible poster board like material that I was using which I had cut from food packaging.
To do it right, of course, I would have to be highly mindful of having the proper offset on overlapping linkages - along with having more rigid linkages, too, obviously.
When considering whatever slop there will be in the joints of the mechanism that I ultimately use, an approximate straight line mechanism made with fewer linkages and joints would probably be as good as the other, anyway.
I don't normally look too much at other people's stuff, but when it comes to mechanisms to accomplish some things, it can save some time not having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. I often find that some of the mechanisms that I have come up with on my own have been used before, anyway.
I'm guessing that using an approximate straight line mechanism for my test device will be a bit more energy efficient than using rollers and/or linear track and/or sliders. If I knew for sure that I would have plenty of excess energy, if of course I ultimately get any extra energy at all, my design criteria might be for something more compact.
Anyway, I plan on perusing the above websites some more to see if there are any other mechanisms I can make use of even in my potentially Bessler related experiments. Hopefully they can be of some help to others, too.
Dwayne
I'll probably soon be using a Chebyshev approximate straight line mechanism in a test device I'm getting ready to build. Again, though, this will be for something that is not Bessler and/or gravity related.
I used some cardboard and furniture nails last night to try to make a quick mock up of one of the more complicated true straight line mechanisms, but I quickly saw that it was likely too complicated for my needs. ...not to mention it didn't really work very well with the flexible poster board like material that I was using which I had cut from food packaging.
To do it right, of course, I would have to be highly mindful of having the proper offset on overlapping linkages - along with having more rigid linkages, too, obviously.
When considering whatever slop there will be in the joints of the mechanism that I ultimately use, an approximate straight line mechanism made with fewer linkages and joints would probably be as good as the other, anyway.
I don't normally look too much at other people's stuff, but when it comes to mechanisms to accomplish some things, it can save some time not having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. I often find that some of the mechanisms that I have come up with on my own have been used before, anyway.
I'm guessing that using an approximate straight line mechanism for my test device will be a bit more energy efficient than using rollers and/or linear track and/or sliders. If I knew for sure that I would have plenty of excess energy, if of course I ultimately get any extra energy at all, my design criteria might be for something more compact.
Anyway, I plan on perusing the above websites some more to see if there are any other mechanisms I can make use of even in my potentially Bessler related experiments. Hopefully they can be of some help to others, too.
Dwayne
I don't believe in conspiracies!
I prefer working alone.
I prefer working alone.
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
Well, this week, rather than my usual total procrastination, I actually worked some on making the linkages for my straight line mechanisms. Since I want a horizontal moving platform for my test device, I need two full mechanisms to put in parallel.I wrote:I'm guessing that using an approximate straight line mechanism for my test device will be a bit more energy efficient than using rollers and/or linear track and/or sliders. If I knew for sure that I would have plenty of excess energy, if of course I ultimately get any extra energy at all, my design criteria might be for something more compact.
After quite a bit of work, however, I've now decided to try just using a level platform with rollers instead, at least for my preliminary tests. Having so many linkages and joints for the approximate straight line mechanisms seems overly complicated for my purposes. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to wonder if such complicated mechanisms would ever really be necessary for any real world device, anyway. I think a level platform with rollers may actually be better after all and even less massive than all the linkages needed for the other.
I'd like to see some arguments in favor of straight line mechanisms, if anyone knows of any.
I would have probably been finished with the build of my test device by now if I hadn't been wasting all that time cutting and gluing and drilling tiny little holes into Popsicle sticks. Live and learn, I guess.
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re: Fundamentals of Design - Invention Resources
The mark of a good design is great simplicity, which is often the most difficult to imagine. If I might quote John Collins: " A successful Bessler wheel will have an elegant simplicity about it--------------you will wonder; WHY, didn't I think of it??
Sam Peppiatt
Sam Peppiatt