Naked Machines

I continued the vivisection process with the cheque imprinter and the electric typewriter.


The inside of the electric typewriter is better than I hoped. It contains three stepper motors, a touch sensor, several switches, gears, a nice contact keyboard and possibly a thermistor (think heat sensor).

Vivisecting Junk

I've been doing some research into the predecessors of my electro-mechanical junk. Most of it has led me to the inventions of the typewriter, adding machines, calculating machines and analog computers. Much of that technology shares similar mechanisms, such as the keyboard which is present in the typewriter and also in adding machines.

I started to take apart the Paymaster X-900 cheque imprinter. The mechanism inside has some very complex movements. Here is a video showing the internals of the imprinter during operation:



Good news! I was able to procure an accordion today. It is on its way from Saskatchewan.

Precious Junk

We were to find 4 electronic or mechanical devices that we will tear apart and integrate into our work. Here are pictures of three of my items:

Paymaster X-900 Cheque Imprinter

Brother EP5 Electric Typewriter

Sawyer's 550A Slide Projector

Not sure if I will use the slide projector or not. It does have a nice rack and pinion for focusing the lens.

I'm on the lookout for a cheap accordion for the project as well.

The Machine Continues. . .

I've been scouring through the thrift stores the past couple days looking for electronic/mechanical devices that we will be integrating into our projects. I picked up an old computer, an electric typewriter, a slide projector and a Paymaster X-900 cheque imprinter. The cheque imprinter is a nice piece of equipment - made of solid metal and has a great hand crank that powers it. Pictures will be posted soon.

Continued work on the "Actuator Theatre" today. I finished constructing the pulleys and designed crankshafts to power the Artoblevski machines.


Pulling the braided fishing line attached to the pulleys causes the whole contraption to spring to life.



Here's a video of it in action:

Drawing Machine and Beyond

We had some preliminary reviews of our paper machine/drawings in studio. We are now allowed to use bass wood in our designs if needed as we elaborate on our work. I think it is more interesting to continue working just with the paper, so I'm going to avoid using wood for now.

Today I worked on improving my curve-generating machine. I re-layered the parts a bit to improve their function. I rebuilt the 90 degree slider with a larger "foot" so that it wobbles less.

I hope to make the machines operate simultaneously and with a single input of motion. I'd like the drawing mechanism to work autonomously, so I experimented with a few different types of pencils and pens to see how well they draw without using pressure. Pencil hardness's down to 2B didn't mark the paper much at all. Pens were not much better. Conte sticks seem to work well enough that the line becomes visible, so I modified the machine to make it able to hold the Conte stick.


I'm now building some larger pulleys that will be wound with string. Pulling the string will turn the pulleys, activating crankshafts attached to the machines. Or so I hope.

A Slightly Larger Paper Machine

Here is the "Hain Linkwork Tilting Crawler" mechanism I constructed yesterday. It works fairly well. The pulleys were constructed from a strip of paper with tabs that is fitted between two paper discs. The rest of the links were cut from three layers of paper laminated together.

A Tiny Paper Machine

Here's a picture of the test gears from yesterday.


This morning I built paper versions of the gears that seem to work well. Folded tabs on the teeth of the gears help them to make better contact with each other.


I continued drawing out and cutting parts for the drawing machine. The parts ended up being really tiny. I would not want to go any smaller than this. The pin joints work well. I still need to revise the 90 degree sliding joint and the "T" joint to make them operate smoother.


The mechanism works as is, but it's a bit "fiddly." It draws only one portion of the curve. I think I would need to build more of the same mechanism in different configurations to complete the curve.

Studio Begins!

All set for another year chock-full of studio goodness!



Project One for Patrick Harrop's "Hacking Studio" begins with a drawing machine drawn and built out of paper. Two machines from Illich Artoblevski’s Mechanisms in Modern Engineering Design will be integrated into the project. I selected one mechanism that generates a fourth-degree curve and a "Hain Linkwork Tilting Crawler."

Today was spent figuring out how the fourth-degree curve generator might work and designing the gears that it requires. Using simple circle geometry, I constructed a set of gears with three elliptical lobes. They almost worked (and probably would work well if the gears could be constructed absolutely perfectly). The lobes mesh together well, but slight variations in the lobes cause the gears to lose contact with one another.

I constructed another set of more conventional gears that seem to work well (at least in millboard form). I'll try them in paper form tomorrow.