Useless, but cool.

Now he needs to build a resistor.

Very cool but loud.

Isn’t this how a clock pendulum works?

A sprag does the same thing also. Allows motion one way (that is until you break it)

Wouldn’t it be more efficient and much quieter to use a differential transmission between the two? Each gear has a ratcheting system in opposite directions, the drill is the input to the differential, the outputs are connected to both. The gear with a ratchet preventing rotation will have a very high mechanical resistance compared to the gear moving in the direction of the ratchet, causing the energy to be almost entirely transmitted to the “correct” side.

Then again, I didn’t think to build this and put it up on YouTube, so he certainly deserves credit.

@googfan – absolutely not useless ! This would be perfect to use for harnessing wave energy. A floating “wing” would give you a left/right tilt as a wave travels under it. This “rectifier” would allow you to convert that into a constant spinning direction for driving a generator or other shaft that harnesses the power in some other way.

Freewheel bearings are common, and take many forms; most bicycles have one. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewheel

These would make a cheaper, sturdier, and more efficient “rectifier” mechanism. The resulting project wouldn’t look as dramatic however.

What reboots said.

This was really obvious using two ratchets, but the cleaner more effective answer was the freewheel. I had to work with these when one went bad on a family members’ bike. They’re not fun to rebuild, but they last forever, the bike was probably 10 years old.

@Mikey
It’s loud because it’s two ratchets, one is always slipping while the other is locking the large wheel it’s on to the smaller wheel it’s resting against.
A video with a stationary camera and coloured spots on each gear would demonstrate this better.

Mechanical hacks, Everything old is new again :)

Its a Nice model. Maybe made for teaching?
Either way it shows how a mechanism that looks complicated at first is pretty simple at heart :)

@ everyone who replied to me.

I would say that electical rectification is much more efficiant using a full wave rectifier. There is alot of mechanical energy lost in those ratchets.

@googfan, remember, you’re also losing electrical energy in the forward voltage drop of the rectifier diodes.

I think I saw one of these in the Saw movies.

Very cool build!

My first thought, though, is that a worm drive does this with two gears. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_drive

Did this years ago with a Lego differential and two ratchets back to one axle. Perhaps if instead of ratchets, the system operated like the system which locks a seatbelt in a crash or when you pull it too fast, in one direction, then it could eb more efficient.

Nice!

Indeed, using roller clutches would have been another (much quieter and visually confusing) option.

I remember a different type of full-wave rectifier was used in dot-matrix printers to always spool the ink tape in the same direction regardless of the direction the head was moving (thus allowing printing in both directions)
IIRC, it used 4 gears in a T shape, the bottom one being the input, and the outside two the outputs.
The middle gear was not fixed but swung on an arm around the input gear with some friction, enough to only mesh with one output at a time.
If the input gear was going clockwise, it would swing the middle gear to the right, meshing with the right hand output, and clearing the left output.

The arm might only have been a semicircular slot in the chassis for the middle gear’s axle.

THAT CLOCK HAND IS MADE OUT OF WASHERS

@anon lock up clock escapement on wikipedia about how a pendulum works. This is way too complicated and trouble prone to use for electrical power generation from wave action. An alternator will create current no matter what direction it turns. Let the alternator spin back and forth and use solid state rectifiers to create DC. Using something like this to create 60 cycle AC directly, would create AC so dirty the power company would never let it connect to the grid.

@ tim

Flywheel

Clutch

:)

See I told you this would happen.. Steampunk is alive.. Shun your silicon, steam is the way forward :)

Ratchet and pawl, nothing new. Probably invented pre-Victorian era.

Almost a century late dude!

If you knew anything about horology, you’d know this is a basic technique that winds “automatic” watches for nearly a century.

http://www.orientalwatchsite.com/first-automatic-watch-harwood-in-the-20s/

Currently an automatic watch is on my wrist right now, a Tissot Le Locle Chronograph with a Valjous 7550 movement.

Here are some really cool graphic explanations of that mechanism:
http://www.timezone.com/library/horologium/horologium631672313433425752
http://www.timezone.com/article.aspx?id=horologium&articleId=horologium631674031715938957

Cool a clock mechanism.

lologram for hackaday, delivered in a roflcopter made from chocolate. now thats a hack.

I have been thinking of ways to create components (capacitor, diode, resistor, inductor and a transistor) that operate with water. Water instead of electrons. A capacitor, for instance, would be a rubber balloon diaphragm in the middle of a pipe. A diode a check valve, and resistor a restriction in the pipe. The transistor I have not figured out yet, nor the inductor. (the inductor may be a vertical reservoir or something… maybe)
This guy has gone a step further with gears.

I’d like to see a “water amplifier” .. a basic equivilant to an audio amplifier made with the above described parts.

@XSdb:

A proportional valve is akin to a ‘water amplifier’…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportioning_valve

“A more comprehensive hack would be building a mechanical 8088.”

That would truly be a sight to behold! :D

For those of you who think that a “diode” mechanism has no application consider this:

For years, certain manufacturers of dot-matrix and daisywheel printers used a similar contrivance to convert the back-and-forth motion of the carriage to advance the spindles that drove the ribbon cartridge. This saved the cost (and weight)of an additional motor.

I could also envision a bicycle that dispensed with your typical crank in lieu of two pedals, reciprocating in a linear fashion. Their motion could be changed via a “diode-like mechanism to continuous rotary motion.

BTW, if you have *any* interest in machinery, you have to get your hands on a vintage copy of “507 Mechanical Movements.” My copy was reprinted by Lindsay Books in more recent times, but a quick glance at Google suggests that several other book publishers have also reproduced it.

pookey

You’ve got to give him credit for build quality. I would love to see an adding machine made of out these like the one in Makers.http://craphound.com/makers/download/

so a planetary gearbox would be a transitor and a breaking system woudl be a resistor? so whoe want to be the first to build a mechanical calculator based off of this?

It’s a great proof of concept and everything but I don’t understand how it took him 2 years to make it…….maybe it’s just me.

Two years of your life on that project. Ok. You need to get out more.

don’t use them for analog project,
to much noise ;)

Not useless…already available in ratchet format. Either way you twist the handle, the head turns the direction you select:
http://www.stanleyproto.com/default.asp?CATEGORY=BH%5FRATCHET&TYPE=PRODUCT&PARTNUMBER=34950R&strSiteName=Blackhawk&strDefaultCatalog=Blackhawk&SDesc=3%2F8%26%2334%3B+Rotator%26%23153%3B+Ratchet

so instead of clack clack clack clack clack CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK
you would get schlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlupschlup