Kevin had the beginnings of a homebrew elevator in his house. The cab was lifted and lowered by a hydraulic forklift ram, but it didn’t have the right logic circuits to make it work like an elevator does. He approached Michael, who helped him plan and install the control system for it.
Here’s yet another delightful mechanical curiosity from among Nikola Tesla’s nearly 300 known patents. Shown above is the sole drawing page from US patent #1,329,559, “Valvular Conduit,” issued 1920. You may have to stare at the upper section, for a moment, to figure out what’s going on: Flow from left to right, as illustrated, is against the valve’s bias—the stream is broken up and diverted in circular paths that return to interfere with each other. Flow from right to left, however, is not so impeded.
Mike Pantrey, aka Flickr user Mrsuperpants, saw Phil’s post on Friday about Dave’s homemade laminar water jet and “in two evenings of tinkering in the garage, and some time reading up the background over a couple of lunchtimes” produced his own version, shown here. Construction details are available on Mike’s personal site. He cites The Laminar Project Forum as a valuable design resource.
There’s no doubt I have eccentric tastes, but I love the way this looks. Would be even cooler if she had, like, a stainless steel feed trough or something for the tub.
These are not standing waves; they appear momentarily and then recede. Which is still pretty amazing. The machine, at Japan’s National Maritime Research Institute, is being described in the English-language blogosphere as having been designed to conduct water-safety tests. [via Neatorama]
Top 10 mechanical curiosities from the archives of Make: Online.
Heron’s Fountain, aka Hero’s Fountain (Wikipedia), is named for Hero of Alexandria, a 1st-century Greek mathematician and physicist who described it in his Pneumatica. It is a kind of hydraulic novelty, in which the action of falling water causes a stream of water to spurt up higher than its source, which is counterintuitive for many. This beautiful example dates from the late 1700s and is described in detail in the online gallery of the Museo Galileo in Florence.
