Maschinen Tractate Twin pumps

[John Collins]

Jon, as far a I know we cannot tell exactly when MT 93 and 94 were drawn. I think it's safe to assume that they were drawn in numerical order because Bessler comments somewhere that a particular drawing should have been included earlier. All I can say is that all the drawings were probably completed sometime between 1717 and 1732. That is 15 years at the most and assumes an average of about 10 a year. Carving those drawings on wood blocks in his spare time probably means each one took about a month. Perhaps MT93 could have been drawn in the 93rd month since 1717? So that would be about 1725?

Pure speculation I know and open to criticism, but that's my best shot.

JC

[bluesgtr44]

MT175 and 177? Where did that come from....and where is MT144-174?


Steve

[John Collins]

MT175 and 177? Where did that come from....and where is MT144-174

Sorry Steve, you've lost me?

JC

[bluesgtr44]

The two diagrams he posted were labeled as MT175 and MT177. I recognize that part of this is based on MT107, and I probably jumped the gun on this and quickly assumed they were,maybe....other MT's that I had not seen or heard of before.


Steve

[John Collins]

yes of course sorry Steve, I didn't notice that.

JC

[Jon J Hutton]

Finally have time to get back to the computer.

Bessler made reference to many new inventions and ideas besides pm. One took his life and we may never know what exactly he was planning with his windmill or water mill (imo) that he fell from.

Another reference which showed up in you-tube that has not received any attention from this forum or others (that I know of) is in the form of a simple water fountain. We are given hardly any info except the key workings of it are from one of Besslers drawings www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4yRrOw2Ww called a spiral pump and the patent certainly has some intrigue.

Drawings MT 93, 94, and 95 deserve more attention (IMO) . 93 is obviously a flattened out archmedian screw and up until drawing 95 it has never been discovered how to raise water higher than the paddlewheel or like mechanism without the aid of pistons or rams (The first self-acting ram pump was invented by the Frenchman Joseph Michel Montgolfier in 1796). It is speculation about drawing 95 (possible written around 1725) to say that Bessler figured out how to accomplish this, but an interesting patent showed up in Switzerland about 24 years after Besslers drawing called a spiral Pump created in 1746 by H.A. Wirtz. Not much is known about the person who applied for the patent. The spiral pump was used in Europe up until 1842 the steam engine and gasoline engine hid it until 1985. I am sure that there are many more inventions that were hidden because of these two “great� inventions. The spiral pump uses airflow and boyles law to raise water to great heights 80 feet head and more. Although it boasts the same height as a bowjohn (Australian pump using air and water) it is a much simpler pump with less parts (only two bearings and one friction part) to show wear. So why the importance. Two reasons. 1. it is not shown that the video is faked 2. It might be possible to use it to find pm by using ball bearings instead of air or perpetually feed water like the youtube video. There really only 2 sites that talk about it and obviously there has not been much r and d done on this subject. At the very least you could use it to produce electricity from grey water from a stream any way thought I would introduce this and see what others think. Here are the links below.

www.lurkertech.com/water/pump/tailer/
www.earthgarden.com.au/waterwheel.html

[DrWhat]

MT 93 does look like a spiral pump and has a feedback mechanism such that the water comes out the centre region and is then flowed over the waterwheel to (in theory) perpetuate the motion by making the spiral turn.

My guess is that Bessler never built this device but it does lean towards Bessler being the inventor of the spiral pump prior to H. A. Wirtz in Zurich in 1746. Unless Bessler got the idea from someone else. Note Bessler died in 1745, and the MT drawings were probably made much earlier as JC states. So well before Wirtz.

Very interesting.

EDIT: I see now that MT 93 is a corrugated funnel rather than a long spiralled tube.

[DrWhat]

Jon, rolling ballbearings/wheel weights would account for scratching noises in some of Bessler's wheels!

[Fletcher]

FYI - Bessler 'accumulated' designs, some of which were his own while others were not - he would have built some of the basic principles [not all of them] in his 10 year study until he came upon the potential solution to his 'PM' wheel - N.B. he said the principle could be seen with children playing in the street, so go figure.

N.B. I have seen & turned a reproduction of a spiral pipe archimedean screw designed by leonardo da vinci in a traveling road show of his works, so I'm pretty sure its been around for quite a while prior to Wirtz.

[Jon J Hutton]

I have looked at Leonardo's work on pumps and spirals and all I have found the water is only able to leave the spiral through the center of the spiral. A wirtz spiral pump the water can leave the wheel 80 feet above it. This makes it a great candidate for further study.

Leonardo's work states

In the belief that spirals and screws might hold a solution, he applied his beloved principle of the vortex to the problem. The design on the right of Codex Forster Fol 44r is one of a number of solutions or “compound screws� involving planar spirals, conical spirals and V-shaped configurations of tubes combined to achieve continuous motion. The water ascends to the centre of the planar spiral “s p� and then passes to the pyramidal screw “n c� running from the point at “c� to “p� and acting as an “equidistant lever� to turn the whole apparatus. As the device revolves, further “levers� would come into play, though the precise configuration or operation is far from clear.

He latter came to make his famous quote about pm seekers being likend to alchemy.

He was close to the spiral pump but very far away.

mt 95 is where this really gets intersting IMO.

JJH

[rmd3]

JJH,
Didn't Bessler say something about one side being full and the other empty? ... interesting... ...maybe your on the right track to how Bessler did it. I'd like to explore this pump's operation more closely one day, but gotta keep pressing on with the current design (which is different than this but this is interesting none-the-less).
-Randall