Here’s something I find interesting.
A while back I came across an interesting table on the internet
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=v ... 0mN6zkLknQAwesome, right? Then I thought, how does that work? I didn’t locate any blueprints or anything, but I did start thinking about how I would make that table myself.
That means translating the lateral motion of the table leaves into energy that can be used in different directions and for different speeds. That meant I had to learn more about gears, and it turns out gears are interesting.
One of the first things I came across was a video on the necessity of differential gears.
Basically, if you are just pulling a two-wheel cart, each wheel can have its own axel and turn independent of one another. When you turn the cart around, one wheel travels much less distance, possibly even standing stationary, and just pivoting, while the other travels a much greater distance around the circumference of the turn.
If both of those wheels are on a single axel, the outside wheel describing the arc will be dragged through the dirt because its movement is restricted by the stationary wheel, which is not turning at all. A differential gear set allows for both wheels to turn at independent rates and you can even apply power to these two wheels using that configuration.
The video explains it better than I can with text alone, so check it out. It may start off slow, but I think what you learn from it is worth the slow parts. Very interesting.
http://www.wimp.com/differentialgear/here’s the obligatory wiki link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gearshere’s a guy who’s been tinkering with gear designs.
http://www.dump.com/2010/11/01/oddly-sh ... ars-video/
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