If you're building a motorcycle engine powered car, the one thing you'll have to figure out is how to put the car in reverse. Quite a few years ago, we covered a reverse gearbox that would do the job with an input shaft on one one end and an output shaft on the opposite side. That post still gets a lot of traffic because a lot of guys building these projects are having a hard … [Read more...]
Inception Drive – Compact Infinitely Variable Transmission
The Inception Drive, just invented by SRI International, is an extremely compact, infinitely variable transmission developed for robotics, but which could have all sorts of other applications. You have to watch the video and think about it for a while to see what's going on and even then, you'll have to think a little more to picture it in your mind. When you watch the video, … [Read more...]
The Mechanical Beauty of Gears in Motion
Pat Conkle was a retired machinist and he created this amazing display of gears, levers, cams and pistons in his shop while his wife, whose health was failing, sat nearby. They were able to spend this time together as he built some very impressive mechanisms that can be appreciated by anyone, though the more technically inclined you are, the more you'll see. Watch the … [Read more...]
Mechanical Animations and Analog Computers – Who Needs Electronics?
Whenever we show you a new engine, the designer usually has an animation of some sort to demonstrate how it works because a static drawing or display can be a bit obscure, but being true gearheads, you can certainly look at some gears and figure out how they work, after all, they're just gears. Well, for the most part, that's true, but every now and then, even with what appears … [Read more...]
Is Your Imagination Future Proof?
You've probably seen the drawings where some illustrator thought he was being very techie and placed three gears next to one another in a triangle all meshed together. You and I can look at a graphic like that and our spatial imagination quickly sees the problem, the gears can't turn because they're all locked in place. Now look at the gears in the photo. The photo and the … [Read more...]
Rapid Prototyping Almost Production Ready
We've talked about rapid prototyping before, 3D printing of intricate parts from various types of plastic or, in some cases, from metal where the durability of the finished product isn't an issue. If only they could print production ready parts for manufactured items the potential of the process would be unleashed. Looks like we're just about there as GE and EADS, a European … [Read more...]