
Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements (1908) - dvt
http://507movements.com
======
mohn
This is awesome, and reminds me of Animagraffs [0], which has also come up on
HN from time to time.

[0] [https://animagraffs.com](https://animagraffs.com)

~~~
dyukqu
I didn't know this website, it's absolutely beautiful and even works in a
mobile browser (Firefox Focus). Thank you for sharing.

------
JasuM
This one's my favorite (although I haven't read the whole thing):

"This movement is designed to double the speed by gears of equal diameters and
numbers of teeth—a result once generally supposed to be impossible. Six bevel-
gears are employed..."

[http://507movements.com/mm_226.html](http://507movements.com/mm_226.html)

~~~
JudgeWapner
I read and re-read this for a solid 5 minutes and I have no idea how it
produces the result. I get that gear D spins orbitally around the left-right
axis instead of rotating clockwise, but I can't seem to grok how that would
produce 2x rotations.

~~~
Animats
A differential is an adder.[1] This is a differential hooked up as a doubler.

Mechanical analog computers, especially gun predictors, had lots of setups
like that.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4&t=757](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4&t=757)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Thanks for that video. Very informative... like many of the videos from that
age. There's something about training videos and physics videos from the 50s /
60s that makes them much better than what people produce today; it's hard to
say exactly what it is, but they do feel cruft-free.

~~~
dTal
Not just the 50s/60s - this video explaining differentials is from 1937 and is
a marvel of pedagogy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Oh yes, that's legendary! I forgot it was pre-war! Speaking of war, I also
recall pretty well-made video explanations for bomber pilots, about how to fly
the planes to avoid anti-aircraft fire.

So I guess I should extend my original statement to the 1930s-1970s range.

------
contingencies
Great for assisting with mechanical engineering problem solving. I just sent
this to my team. If you like this sort of thing, we also discovered an awesome
set of mechanical animations on Youtube done by an experienced Vietnamese
mechanical engineer in a similar vain (but 3D drafted). URL not handy,
hopefully someone can find/share.

~~~
harryday
Potentially:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146/videos)

~~~
cwkoss
thang's videos are awesome - quick, simple and to-the-point, and quite
prolific in volume.

------
s1mon
These types of books are helpful and proof that it’s hard to innovate
mechanisms. However the animated GIFs are not the clearest. I’m more of a fan
of this guy’s Youtube channel with carefully modeled animated 3D CAD of tons
of amazing mechanisms.
[https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146](https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146)

------
londons_explore
This is a dying art.

The modern way to achieve any kind of complex mechanical motion is to attach a
servo to the thing and use a computer to set a motion profile.

A bit of a shame really.

~~~
soulofmischief
I think it will always have its place.

For example, I predict the increasingly suffocating digital zeitgeist will
give rise to a form of competition which would be the mechanist's version of a
demo scene.

People will compete to "hack" non-digital mechanics as far as they can go,
from analog sensors to mobile, programmable, multi-function automatons such as
Theo Jansen's _Strandbeests_ [0].

Resources like this, even if their maintainers have long gone, will become
coveted gold mines.

[https://www.strandbeest.com/](https://www.strandbeest.com/)

~~~
spitfire
Already sort of happened in the mechanical watch space. When the quartz crisis
hit in the 1970's all the traditional Swiss watchmakers had to move upmarket
with fancier complications.

I expect the same thing to happen to ICE automobiles. To become
luxury/jewellery pieces.

~~~
cr0sh
> Already sort of happened in the mechanical watch space.

So-called "Tourbillon" escapements, for instance:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon)

Fantastic (and expensive) works of mechanical movement art, but it goes well
beyond this.

Some "watches" (the fanciest ones aren't really wearable, but could be
considered "portable") contain an amazing number of various mechanical
functions and movements (called "complications"), of utter insane complexity:

[http://reference57260.vacheron-constantin.com/en2/the-
worlds...](http://reference57260.vacheron-constantin.com/en2/the-worlds-most-
complicated-watch)

Similar such works are done in the clock space as well.

I wish I had the wealth to be able to afford such a piece (then again, if I
did, I'd probably have a 3rd iteration of the Difference Engine commissioned
first - sigh).

------
symplee
Can anyone explain movement 38? [1]

Two identical gears start moving at the same speed. Suddenly, one gear slows
down, then lurches forward at a much faster speed, and then returns to its
starting speed.

While the other, identically shaped gear, spins at a constant speed the whole
time.

[1] [http://507movements.com/mm_038.html](http://507movements.com/mm_038.html)

~~~
Rapzid
Others have talked to the changing ratio, however I think the possible
implications(use cases) of this are also interesting. I'm imagining making
room for something, also rotating at a the same speed, to slip into place by
arresting the second gears speed before catching it up.

I'd love to get into watch building which likely utilizes a lot of these
tricky movements.

~~~
pawelk
I have recently became interested with the inner workings of watches and found
this 1949 video to be a perfect explanation of the underlying concept of a
watch movement mechanism:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYBvt9kA3bE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYBvt9kA3bE)

~~~
Rapzid
That was a great video. Tourbillon from scratch; one day.

------
jcims
I used to spend a lot of time chasing a mower around the yard while trying to
design a continuously variable transmission that used (for lack of the term of
art) direct engagement (eg gears) rather than friction on bearing surfaces
like belt-based cvt’s.

Came up with a few tantalizing geometries but would always find a problem
after thinking it through.

Makes me wonder how many if these were deveoped under similarly mindless
activities. Also makes me wonder what a genetic algorithm or ML-based
optimization/search algorithm could find.

~~~
balfirevic
> a continuously variable transmission that used (for lack of the term of art)
> direct engagement (eg gears)

I believe the term is "positive engagement". And yeah, it's such a shame that
all practical CVT's are friction based!

~~~
logicprog
I'm curious, I saw this ratcheting CVT on YT[1], and since I have no
experience with mechanical engineering wasn't really able to judge how useful
it was or whether it was practical, but it looked like the real deal?

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-N-nIqc4g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-N-nIqc4g)

~~~
balfirevic
To be clear, I'm no mechanical engineer either!

There is some information about ratcheting CVTs (and CVTs in general) here
[0], although the page looks a bit sketchy. From what I've seen, they are not
very practical or widely used. Maybe there is a niche where their capabilities
and drawbacks are a good fit but I have not come across it.

One thing to keep in mind is that these days it's not hard to beat (both on
price and power/torque capabilities) sophisticated transmission mechanism
(meaning - expensive and containing many fragile mechanical parts) by simply
using a larger electric motor with variable speed control and fixed gearing.
Torque output at low speeds (which would be the advantage of CVT) is going to
be limited by mechanical design and weight constraints of the transmission
mechanism.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission#Ratcheting)

------
lqet
This is so cool!

[http://507movements.com/mm_123.html](http://507movements.com/mm_123.html)

[http://507movements.com/mm_185.html](http://507movements.com/mm_185.html)

This is basically how the pantarouter by Matthias Wandel [0] works:

[http://507movements.com/mm_246.html](http://507movements.com/mm_246.html)

Or take a look at this weird engine:

[http://507movements.com/mm_423.html](http://507movements.com/mm_423.html)

I am a bit nostalgic/sad about the fact that many young people who would've
wanted to learn this craft a century ago are today choosing software
engineering.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZ1v4PIsYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZ1v4PIsYI)

~~~
hannasanarion
Making movements like these are really popular in the 3d printing community.

Like this video about number 049, a crank that only turns clockwise:
[https://youtu.be/y44_xMFsPQQ](https://youtu.be/y44_xMFsPQQ)

------
mbostleman
This type of thing is very dangerous for me. I can end up browsing these for
hours. Very similar to knots, how each one is tied, what it's pros and cons
are, the history behind them, etc. I wish like knots these mechanical
movements had names instead of just the index number.

~~~
cr0sh
> I wish like knots these mechanical movements had names instead of just the
> index number.

Some do have "names" (most don't), but you have to go to the movement itself
to see it:

[http://507movements.com/mm_212.html](http://507movements.com/mm_212.html)

This one is common, and known as the "Geneva Mechanism" or "Geneva Stop":

[https://www.britannica.com/technology/Geneva-
mechanism](https://www.britannica.com/technology/Geneva-mechanism)

The actual book the animated site is based on:

[https://archive.org/details/fivehundredseven00browiala/page/...](https://archive.org/details/fivehundredseven00browiala/page/n1)

...the index (table of contents) references them by name.

------
tlrobinson
There's a great 1953 Navy fire control computer training film that explains
some of these:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

~~~
always4getpass
That's different. The original link aims at mechanical contraptions while
yours at mechanical computation. Still equally impressive and interesting

~~~
tlrobinson
True, but there's a lot of overlap in the mechanisms. The video explains how
they can be used for computation, which I find even more interesting.

------
oasisbob
Although not animated, the book makes for delightful bathroom reading:

[https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-
Mechanisms-D...](https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-
Devices-ebook/dp/B008TVLYPC/)

~~~
thechao
The book is also well outside of its copyright:

[https://ia800205.us.archive.org/1/items/Mechanical_Movements...](https://ia800205.us.archive.org/1/items/Mechanical_Movements_507/Mechanical_Movements_507.pdf)

~~~
ordu
As a completely unrelated remark: it felt strange for me to see a so ancient
text but without Yat[1] and hard signs[2] at end of the most words. You know,
I've never seen so old english text, only russian ones. Typography is
recognizably ancient, but where are those old letters. Cognitive dissonance as
it is.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AA)

~~~
Nition
If you go back a bit further you start seeing some things like that in
English, for instance the thorn[1] and a "long s"[2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_\(letter\))

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s)

~~~
ordu
It is striking for me to see that alphabet might be changed without
intervention of a state.

~~~
Nition
Here's the start of the Wycliffe Bible from the 14th century:

> In þe firſte made God of nouȝt heuene and erþe. Þe erþe forſoþe was veyn wiþ
> ynne and void, and derkneſſis weren vpon þe face of þe ſee; and þe ſpiryt of
> God was born vpon þe watrys. And God ſeide, Be maad liȝt; and maad is liȝt.

NIV Bible (20th century):

> In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was
> formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
> Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be
> light,” and there was light.

------
jzwinck
I like
[http://507movements.com/mm_398.html](http://507movements.com/mm_398.html)
which is a programmable drive system. Constant rotation input can give you a
cyclic but irregular and arbitrary output movement.

Another good programmable mechanism is a spring made from sheet metal. Take a
flat piece and cut a spiral with the width of the material proportional to the
force you want at that part of the spring's travel. Stretch it out to form a
little tower, with the base on a solid surface, and the load carried on the
center of the spiral.

~~~
vanderZwan
> _Constant rotation input can give you a cyclic but irregular and arbitrary
> output movement._

Arthur Ganson has used that to make kinetic artworks:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_ganson_makes_moving_sculptu...](https://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_ganson_makes_moving_sculpture?language=en)

------
thunderbong
The book is a real joy

[https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Henry-
Brown/...](https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Henry-
Brown/dp/1614275181/)

~~~
chadcmulligan
The kindle edition [https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-
Mechanisms-D...](https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-
Devices-
ebook/dp/B008TVLYPC/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=507+Mechanical+Movements&qid=1558518166&s=gateway&sr=8-2)

------
proee
Does anyone have a good source for buying these types of odd parts?

Years ago there was a website called "smallparts.com" but this was bought out
and no longer exists.

~~~
wlesieutre
I don’t remember exactly what SmallParts carried, but their closest competitor
might be McMaster-Carr?

[https://www.mcmaster.com/](https://www.mcmaster.com/)

And SmallParts I think is now Amazon Supply or something, but dear god would I
not trust Amazon for that sort of purchase. Especially PPE like allegedly 3M
respirators. Who knows how much of this is counterfeit.

~~~
gxx
Small Parts used to be an indispensable source of well cataloged parts for my
projects. They shipped quickly and reliably and had a nice parametric search
system.

Sadly they were acquired by Amazon and effectively ruined. In theory Amazon
sells the same parts but Amazon's search for specialized parts is dreadful,
and when you find a part it's often out of stock or available with a long lead
time from a dubious supplier.

To me Small Parts is the classic example of how Amazon is systematically
stamping out smaller but better suppliers. I'm not sure why Amazon even needed
to acquire them. They could have sold those types of parts anyway. I wonder if
they simply wanted the smallparts.com url, which now leads to Amazon.

I should clarify why I liked Small Parts vs McMaster Carr: I'm in Canada and
Small Parts would ship to Canada, but McMaster Carr would not ship here unless
you had a business, but my work was for a hobby.

------
userbinator
Given that these animations aren't interactive and run continuously as well as
have a fixed resolution (I thought they were SVG at first, but zooming in
disproves that), I feel like plain old GIFs would be far better for
accessibility and maybe even bandwidth --- GIF's delta-frame encoding is
surprisingly effective, especially for art like this.

~~~
TeMPOraL
s/accessibility/generic utility/ \- I'm not sure I understand why would one
want to use Canvas and code the animations where a GIF would do. Only two
reasons come to mind - maybe the future plan is to make them interactive, or
maybe the authors found it easier to hand-code the animations rather than
bothering with an animation editor.

~~~
cr0sh
The author is the same guy behind the animated engines site:

[http://www.animatedengines.com/](http://www.animatedengines.com/)

He explains how he did those animations:

[http://www.animatedengines.com/howto.html](http://www.animatedengines.com/howto.html)

Which was rather laborious; perhaps his CAD and programming knowledge made it
so that creating a physical animation engine was easier than other methods?

Regardless, I wish he'd open source it; he mentions that he might - but it's
been a few years now, so...

------
gene-h
There's also DMG-LIB[0] and KMODDL[1] which contain mechanism animations along
with CAD models of some mechanisms. It's been mentioned before, but
thang010146's youtube channel also has many of these mechanisms, sometimes
they even have CAD models available of their models. I suspect that
thang010146 might actually have the largest digital repository of mechanisms.

[0][https://www.dmg-lib.org/dmglib/main/portal.jsp](https://www.dmg-
lib.org/dmglib/main/portal.jsp)
[1][https://engineering.library.cornell.edu/kmoddl](https://engineering.library.cornell.edu/kmoddl)
[2][https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146](https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146)

------
kazinator
> [http://507movements.com/mm_015.html](http://507movements.com/mm_015.html)

"Power as 1 to 7". I don't think so: the cable's tension is paralleled six
ways against the load, so 6 times the force.

~~~
Ensorceled
This is not a standard pully system.

~~~
kazinator
There is only cable. Unless the pulleys are stuck due to friction, the tension
is equal in all sections of the cable. The load is being lifted by six
segments of the cable, so 6x the tension: the machine's advantage is 6x.

------
pzs
Those who find it interesting may also be interested to check out Polhem's
mechanical alphabet [1], which was created nearly two centuries earlier. Fun
fact: I learned about it from a Pettson and Findus tale I read to my children,
and I was lucky enough to see parts of it in the museum in Stockholm [1]
during last summer.

[1] [https://www.tekniskamuseet.se/en/learn-more/swedish-
inventor...](https://www.tekniskamuseet.se/en/learn-more/swedish-
inventors/christopher-polhem-the-mechanical-alphabet/)

------
kevinguay
What a great project. I have a very similar book (1800 Mechanical Movements,
Devices, and Appliances) and have a blast flipping through it. It is great to
see the illustrations come alive. Great great job!

~~~
cr0sh
There are actually a great many of these "mechanical movement" books from that
time period, circa 19th to early 20th century.

They are contemporary with similar books on "electrical machinery" (generators
and motors, mainly), "steam engineering", "home and farm
improvements/implements", and many other similar subjects.

Some were aimed at the professional engineer, while others were meant or
accessible to the ordinary person with such interests or needs.

I enjoy discovering and adding these books to my collection when I can find
them at used and antiquarian bookstores.

------
fnord77
#9 is basically a constant velocity transmission (CVT) that's used in many
small cars these days (and motorscooters)

------
lqet
A few months ago, this video [0] from the 30ies explaining a differential was
posted on HN. It also is extremely interesting to watch. Minute 5 is very
illuminating.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI)

------
mrbrowning
This is wonderful, but I am a little disappointed that it wasn't about
mechanical watch movements.

~~~
mohn
Have you seen [https://animagraffs.com/mechanical-
watch/](https://animagraffs.com/mechanical-watch/) ?

~~~
mrbrowning
No, thank you for that!

------
bagels
Also excellent, along the same lines:

Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook

[https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-
Sourceb...](https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-
Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426/)

------
nthnclrk
This is the only link I’m always happy to see resurface when posted here on
HN. Every single time (maybe this is the 5-10th time?) I end up watching
mesmerised for 50 movements or more.

------
fosco
here is the index which describes high leverl what each movement is for.

[http://507movements.com/toc.html](http://507movements.com/toc.html)

------
allochthon
Used to work with Matt Keveney, the author. Pretty cool guy.

------
tonylemesmer
Yet another site here:
[https://www.mekanizmalar.com/](https://www.mekanizmalar.com/)

------
yagibear
This could be useful for design problems if they were cataloged or tagged,
e.g. identifying input as rotary or rectilinear, and type of output.

------
2sk21
Curse you - I won't be able to get any work done today until I have seen all
507 of them :-)

------
psadri
Anyone up for building all of them with legos and creating a museum of
mechanical movements?

~~~
cr0sh
Some of them would be virtually impossible to build with Lego, as they rely
upon machining just not really available in the Lego space (unless there's a
wizard of Lego out there that could fashion such parts using certain strange
Lego parts from certain sets, like the Bionicle series and such).

But a lot of the more basic mechanical movements could be easily constructed;
those with simple pulleys, gears, levers, etc.

So you might not be able to construct all of them, but you probably could
construct a great many.

~~~
psadri
We could 3D print some parts? Or scale up the whole thing to allow building
complex parts from smaller LEGO pieces?

------
bobjordan
I truly love it. Still, could be better with some SPA love.

------
littlepinkpill
It’s surprising that this crowd seems uninterested in the non-https status of
the (otherhwise very cool) site. Have we decided it doesn’t matter? No sarcasm
intended. I’d really like to know.

~~~
syn0byte
HTTPS Everywhere is dumb security theater that desensitizes users to potential
issues when it should otherwise matter.

When only important shit you _really_ wanted to encrypt was encrypted and you
get a cert warning you took notice. Now one in 10 sites with an "easy/free ssl
cert" that expired has normalized cert warnings on pages with cat pictures and
bank sites alike.

------
fillskills
Best distraction ever. Thanks for sharing

