Posted by tactile feedback (205.187.84.223) on June 12, 2003 at 01:07:19:
In Reply to: Re: John Collins/More posted by John Collins on June 12, 2003 at 00:12:10:
Wow! You've been at this for 20 years you say John? I think I would have lost all my "Orffyrean roller bearings" by now if I were you! How do you stay at it? I am wondering why you make no use of springs or other such flexible structures as the main driving force in your models.....Gravity as thought to be a conservative force can most readily be stored as energy in this way. What we are accomplishing by storing the energy potential of gravity in a flexible structure such as a spring, spring steel or better yet, carbon/fiberglass..........is akin to being able to siphon off the energy of a free swinging pendulum. One readily observes the pendulum dropped from a position parallel to a level plane, swing several times until stationary. The sum energy from all of these swings, if it could all be extracted, could be used to return the weight to it's initial position. In storing the energy potential of gravity in such a pendulum (with a flexible arm), we can shake a fig or two from Newton's tree and alter his law such that....."An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force" becomes "An object in motion tends to stay in motion BECAUSE it is acted upon by an external force" and "an object at rest tends to stay at rest BECAUSE it is acted upon by an external force. (at least for our purposes). I say this because unless I am as wrong as a bumble bee, gravity is truly not a conservative force....but a liberal one. Or at least a "liberating" one.
: Hi David,
: Yes each of the four mechanisms are complete units and they can be removed separately. There will be a bang sound (if it works!) No, I'm not using springs, although I have considered using them to try to reduce lateral movement. In answer to your follow-up post I don't know when it will be finished because when this part is done there may be some minor alterations required to positioning which is easy to do in principle but is fiddly and takes time.
: Don't assume that I have the solution as I have been here so many times in the past twenty years that the day I succeed I will probably not notice and will continue to experiment with models.
: JC
: : Hi John,
: : Are these four mechanisms with ten parts complete "units" or do the ten moving parts just happen to sit in the same area? Can they be taken off seperately? Will your machine have the "bang" sound? Are you using springs?
: : David