
Understand 1,700 Mechanical Linkages with These Helpful Animations - adamnemecek
http://makezine.com/2015/04/20/understand-1700-mechanical-linkages-helpful-animations/
======
tzs
For those interested in these kind of mechanical things, Dover has republished
some 19th and early 20th century public domain books that collected together
mechanical movements. Some examples:

"507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices" by Henry T. Brown, from
1868: [http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-
De...](http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-
Devices/dp/0486443604)

"1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances" by Gardner D. Hiscox,
first published in 1899. This is the 16th edition from 1921:
[http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Movements-Devices-
Appliance...](http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Movements-Devices-Appliances-
Science/dp/0486457435/ref=pd_bxgy_14_text_z)

There is also a website that has all the illustrations and text from the Brown
book, and has added animated versions of many of them:
[http://507movements.com/about.html](http://507movements.com/about.html)

~~~
kragen
Since both of these are in the public domain, you can legally print your own
copy, which is more convenient for some people.

Google Books has scanned the 507 Mechanical Movements book, although their
search engine is terrible at finding things like that on their own site; one
copy is available from [http://www.pdnotebook.com/wp-
content/themes/thesis_16/custom...](http://www.pdnotebook.com/wp-
content/themes/thesis_16/custom/images/Five_hundred_and_seven_mechanical_moveme.pdf).
The other, longer book is harder to find via HTTP, although Libgen has a scan
of the 2007 reprint. Timothy Schmidt scanned the original 1899 edition in 2008
and uploaded it to The Pirate Bay, which seems to not have it now:
[http://builders.reprap.org/2008/12/1800-mechanical-
movements...](http://builders.reprap.org/2008/12/1800-mechanical-movements-
devices-and.html).

US patents are also a wonderful source of public-domain diagrams of machinery,
and they are generally better explained (especially before about the 1980s, at
which point their writing quality took a nosedive and they descended into
nearly-unreadable jargon) but I'm not aware of an easily downloadable
repository of scanned patents.

~~~
GregBuchholz
Looks like you can get "1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances" by
Gardner D. Hiscox at:

[http://www.pdfarchive.info/pdf/H/Hi/Hiscox_Gardner_Dexter_-_...](http://www.pdfarchive.info/pdf/H/Hi/Hiscox_Gardner_Dexter_-_1800_Mechanical_movements.pdf)

~~~
kragen
Thank you very much! What search engines do you use?

~~~
GregBuchholz
Just found it using Google. I think I had to end up quoting various parts of
the title, adding "PDF" as part of the search, and going past the first couple
of pages of search results.

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e0
Or, if you want, you can go straight to Prof. Nguyễn's youtube channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146/videos?sort=p&view=...](https://www.youtube.com/user/thang010146/videos?sort=p&view=0&flow=grid)

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cautious_int
Transmission like this looks really good in a simulation, but I wonder how
much lubrication would this require to operate in the real world.

this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzSqc8pxVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzSqc8pxVg)

~~~
varjag
A lot of those solutions have been around for centuries but are quite
impractical. The problems are often the required operational tolerances, wear
rate, poor torque characteristics and other real life issues.

They are utterly fascinating to watch though.

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Animats
Mechanical linkages are fun. There's a nice collection of them at the Museum
of Science and Industry in Chicago, left over from the 1933 Century of
Progress Exhibition. I used to have a Russian textbook on mechanism design
with over a thousand of them. It was all drawings; you didn't really need a
translation.

This guy must _really_ like spending time in Autodesk Inventor. (I just spent
an evening getting some robot parts to fit in there. I'll machine them on a
CNC mill on Monday, and they will fit. Which is the whole point of Inventor.)

~~~
yurish
Do you remember the name of the Russian book?

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jakobegger
Amazing. Now I'm left to wonder what all these contraptions are good for. For
example, why would one use something like this "Persian joint":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFoiSRWdW5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFoiSRWdW5E)
?

~~~
minthd
Some time ago i talked with a machine designer - and he told me that the
industry is moving away from complex mechanical contraptions , into
microcontrolers coupled with smart motors(servo - either linear or rotary)
which allow exact controlled positioning.

~~~
weinzierl
This is certainly true in general. I see a niche for the mechanical solution
if reliability is a primary goal and there is a (not too complex) gear that
can solve your problem.

About ten year ago I worked in project that designed a solar tracker. These
trackers need to be cheap and reliable. Every hour an mechanic spends in a
remote location is incredibly expensive and cuts into your yield very fast.

Interestingly there is a gear that can follow the path of the sun very well
while being driven by motor with constant speed [1].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NGSL--
PmGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NGSL--PmGY)

~~~
minthd
Why are mechanical solutions more reliable than a servo ? Aren't mechanical
and moving parts less reliable than electronics , in general ?

~~~
weinzierl

        Aren't mechanical and moving parts less reliable than 
        electronics, in general? 
    

I don't dare to answer this in general, maybe someone more knowledgeable can
offer his or her opinion. In our case the alternatives were:

    
    
      1. Simple gear and constant velocity three-phase motor[1]
      2. Two axis mounting and two stepper motors.
    

First option has less parts and should be more reliable in theory. That being
said: I only know of commercially available solutions of the second kind.
Maybe this has changed in the last ten years, but our solution never made it
to market.

[1] Industrial three-phase motors are real workhorses, produced in large
quantities since ages, relatively cheap and incredibly reliable.

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crb002
Is there a name for the field of computer science that classifies these
linkages by their topological proporties other than just general CAD stuff? It
would be awesome to say I have linkage A and linkage C, what kind of linkage B
can I put in the middle?

~~~
angdis
Yes, there is: "kinematic synthesis." It is not typically considered a
"computer science" topic; it is instead taught in various forms in mechanical
engineering curriculums.

~~~
GregBuchholz
Can you recommend any good books on kinematic synthesis?

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virmundi
Pay attention. If you ever get sent back in time, this information will be
important. You can make a fortune with this and the ability to create a solar
oven to boil sea salt for salt (that's the seed money right there).

~~~
adamnemecek
Wouldn't it be easier to make the fortune with the time machine I already have
in this hypothetical scenario :-)?

~~~
noobie
It would actually be a time-space machine if you didn't plan on suffocating.

[http://i.imgur.com/o4CJS2w.png](http://i.imgur.com/o4CJS2w.png)

~~~
cautious_int
The Sun is the center of the Universe. Interesting.

~~~
a3n
Everywhere is the center of the Universe.

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lifeisstillgood
These are amazing !

I already have a use for the limited space door at home, and I want to build
the Archimedian Drive just because it is beautiful.

This also says something to me about the value of human determination - a
retired professor in Vietnam must be old enough to have been an adult during
the American involvement in their wars, and crushing poverty their state was
left in, still a professorship and a desire to teach the world is left.

Hats off indeed

~~~
fapjacks
I really don't want this comment to go somewhere weird, but... I think the
experience of war sharpens the desire to see the world made a better place.
Most people come out of the darkness of war and see the value of life, and
this often permeates their attitude in how they want to leave the world. I
think war brings out the altruism in people.

~~~
exodust
Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos
make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good war
doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in disbelief
and reflecting a lot.

But anyway, how about that rack and pinion animation! Finally I get why it's
so effective at safely pulling an old steam train up a steep slope. I honestly
was foggy on how the continuous engine motion translated into alternating
cycles of locking and linear motion. So simple though.

~~~
DanBC
> Let's hope education about previous wars can have the same effect. War docos
> make me feel very fortunate and grateful and not at all complacent. A good
> war doco takes you to a dark place, some have left me shaking my head in
> disbelief and reflecting a lot.

Not a war docu, but still eye opening. A 1969 documentary about a boy leaving
his hair-dressing apprenticeship to join the British army.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jrhv0](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jrhv0)

> First transmitted in 1968, documentary following Martin May, an apprentice
> ladies hairdresser, who decides to join 'a man's world' \- the Junior
> Leaders Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps. The programme follows him as
> he begins his training with a group of recruits.

This boy, Martin May, is only 15 when he joins.

(I have no idea if BBC iPlayer programmes are viewable outside the UK. There's
probably some method to do so).

~~~
exodust
Thx for link. Yes anyone who gives in to geo-blocking these days is a bit
behind the times!

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eggy
Very cool. I have been building animatronics and mechanisms for years until
the last 5 years or so. Typically I relied on old classics of mechanisms, and
then I would model it in Inventor (now Fusion 360 or FreeCAD lately), to see
how it worked. These are brilliant and so numerous! My hat off to Prof.
Nguyễn!

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lordnacho
This is amazing, like a code repo for mechanical programming. You have a
number of common libraries here such as planetary clutches, along with a
variety of solutions to common problems like how to convert between straight
and circular motion.

In fact just like in coding where you have common issues like how to do an
associative array, you have common issues in mech like how do I keep something
pointing the same direction.

~~~
kragen
Unfortunately this isn't the code repo, or even a compiled executable, just
screenshots of the executables.

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karmakaze
Incredible timing. Just yesterday while looking at a door opening mechanism, I
was just wondering where I could find something like this.

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GregBuchholz
Also of potential interest is Chebyshev's "paradoxical" 6-bar linkage:

[http://www.etudes.ru/en/etudes/paradox/](http://www.etudes.ru/en/etudes/paradox/)

~~~
kragen
If I remember the catalog correctly, there are a number of Chebyshev linkages
among Prof. Nguyen's videos, such as
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPVcL0fMBCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPVcL0fMBCk).
I haven't found the paradoxical 6-bar linkage, though.

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a3n
My guess is that basic linkages like this are not patentable, even if you
invent a "new" one. That could be an argument in support of not allowing
patents for at least the fundamentals of computer science and programming.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Do you have any evidence to support this or is it just your reckons?

~~~
a3n
Just my reckons.

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klez
I would have preferred if these were looping GIFs, or if there was a way to
watch these videos on loop without interruptions. There was a similar site
that had looped animation for a lot of these.

~~~
andrewstuart2
On the youtube page if you're using the HTML5 player, you can make them loop
at least in chrome. Just right click the video, which should bring up the
youtube menu. Just right-click again in the video area (not on their popup
menu, but while it's still up), and "Loop" should be an option.

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vijayr
I wonder how much time he spent on these. Incredible dedication!

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iblaine
Very cool, no Theo Jansen linkage in it however.

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dthal
Ok...That's pretty cool. Thx :)

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brador
Seeing this leaves me incredibly dissatisfied with the state of Wikipedia.
This is what it should be about. Using rich media to explain and fascinate.
Instead we get 10.000 words on the history of Anime.

~~~
adamnemecek
You have to remember that anyone can write (maybe not write well, but can
write). Not too many people can use AutoCAD and ever fewer have enough
knowledge to be pumping out one a day like this guy.

~~~
brador
Imagine if wiki spent their money on building tools to allow people to create
multimedia content for the site.

AutoCAD models are an extreme case, but how about a tool to make quick vector
drawings, or a tool to make flow charts to explain complex concepts. All right
there in the wiki interface. All super easy to use. 10x-ing content creation.

~~~
exodust
Your Anime example presents a problem. Anime can't be whipped up quickly with
such tools, or it would be low quality.

And to get past the rights issues with including fine examples of Anime on
Wikipedia, would be an uphill battle.

I sort of understand what you're saying, but Wikipedia is only part of the
puzzle of information. That's why we have the "Internet"!

It's perfectly fine to link out to Youtube videos or channels from a Wikipedia
page about mechanical systems or CAD specific topics.

