@@truthbydesign5146 funnily enough some people had dispute of making them before he did funnilty enough!±!!idid speak anbout it in the vid but ended editing it out it got a bit long and windy haha
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER Yep, appears to be. Cuz Christian reasons. Based on what I could glean from a quick Google search, our mother's are holier than yours. I think. So they get early access to half-hearted gifts and a 5 minute phone call.
"... a room full of relays ..." Find a time machine and set the target date for 1940s through 1970. Go back and visit the phone company's local "switching station" in Anytown U.S.A., Great Britain. or Europe. You will find not just a room full of relays, but an entire building full of them - top to bottom, wall to wall. These were rotary relays that advanced one detent with each clock pulse. Each relay had 1 Normally Closed contact (#0) and 9 Normally Open contacts (#1 - #9) Each contact was wired to a different but specific bank of relays. As you dialed a number, your phone would pulse (clock) the rotary relays working your way through a maze of relays to finally connect your phone to any other phone in that switching station network. By 1970s dialing (1+area code) had been implemented which triggered the initial entry relay to connect your phone to another switching station designated by the area code on a long distance phone line or "trunk line". These were essentially building sized mechanical relay computers who's biggest problem was the heat that was generated by the rotary servos on a Sunday afternoon when most people decided to call their Mums.
Stepping relays like that haven't been used in the US phone system for a long time. The Western Electric crossbar switches (AFAIK) only used regular relays and counted in a digital method, producing a 2 of 5 code.
@@eDoc2020 It probably depended on the area. I saw it in operation first hand in 1964. It was in a rural area, occupied a small re-purposed house, and was right across the street from where I went to school. It was a favorite "class trip" for the science class. The buzzing and clicking of all those relays was defining ... but extremely fascinating to a 5th grader.
@@3DPDK It seems independent telephone companies as well as rural Bell offices would tend to use older Strowger systems instead of the newer and more complicated Panel and Crossbar systems which only made sense for more urban areas. I guess that makes us both right.
Kinda random, but I've been trying to make a really complicated function in a spreadsheet and haven't been able to find a tutorial on how to do it, as it is a really weird application. Seeing your demonstration of how memory bits work in your machine just gave me a eureka moment, and I think I've realized how to do it! Thanks a lot!
Ahah I wish you were my teacher back in school.. I would be Definitely more focus on the lesson, instead of burning capacitors and led and other components to see all the cool explosion! Btw is that crepuscular thingy also a relay?? Ps. You really rely on relays on this one!
The reason that one setup sounded like a turn signal in a car is because that's what most older cars actually used for that. Also if looking for an interesting example of programmable stuff with relays, might want to try finding some info on one of those marquee signs that dates back to the 1920's or 1930's. From what I recall they programmed them with punch cards that would block the light going to a set of photoresistors, but once the text was in the "memory" it kept looping kind of like the setup in this video's example. Crazy that they figured out that stuff way back before vacuum tube or even solid state computers.
The clicking on the relays is music in itself. I bought 600 mini latching relays a long time ago from an army surplus shop and made lots of burglar alarms for friends and local shops. that was in the 80s. I wish I had saved some as I would have sent them over to you. great interesting work Sam :-)
Using a (Hybrid) Vacuum Tube amplifier with my PC, it sounds great! (It's a Xduoo MT-602, with some old GE 5654W valves in it, super fun clunky switch on it too) Don't have anything with absolute relay madness in it yet though, might be a fun project!
Very cool I rember myself when I was younger playing with relays because I liked how they clicked fast forward today I'm in my last year electromechanics
Cool project concept! Relays with latching circuits where very common in lift logic / elevator control circuits until the 1980’s. They where combined with very complicated electromechanical devices to register the lift’s position in the shaft. Also, the the more advanced lift controllers have a memory function where it can store multiple calls. There are some video’s on UA-cam made by lift enthusiasts explaining the design of these circuits. Some old lifts may still have their original relay controller, you can typically hear them working when the lift is moving. It’s essentially an electromechanical computer.
Sam you should become an actual school "teacher" as you have a really unique way of demonstrating things that would resonate with adolescents. You kinda remind me of the BBC childrens presenterJohnny Ball.
It's always fascinating to me to look up etymologies for words like this. Relay comes from "exchange tired animals for fresh," hence its meaning in a relay race or in a telegraph relay station. Speaking of which, consider the origin of "bug" in computing - it dates back to the days of relay computers. A literal bug in the relay contacts.
Relays are cool, i used to install telephone exchanges in the early 70's The telephone relays (type 3000) have wiping contacts, just after they make contact, they move further and wipe across the contact faces, ths keeps them clean and reliable, looked like that big relay did the same, btw, is the contact block supposed to move (black block holding the contacts at the base) ? Telephone relays can also have delays, they use a slug of metal on part of the coil, I once built a cascade timer using first relay to turn on the next etc, the last relay in the chain releaased them all, this was a challenge in training sholl, the tutor was impressed by my method, i even said i could slow it down using capacitors. Some amplifiers have a relay that connects to a dummy load inside when you turn it on, then connects to the speaker after a delay (anti thump), could be a similar thing in your audio device.
Yup, heard the click in my USB soundcard and my little hybrid vacuum tube amp (Xduoo MT-602) when they start, neat to know what they're doing, especially since the tube amp seems to wait until the heaters have got the tubes working before the audio kicks in. Good to know it's protecting my headphones from unnessisary power surges!
(Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove) (Everybody move to prove the groove)
So clicky!! So inificient! So overkill! But still cool. What about using reed relays? But I guess you couldnt potentially sequence a room full of vacuum cleaners with tiny reeds.
Was the extra bit wasn't just switch bouncing issues? Also checkout CuriousMarc's channel. He has a video showing a working Japanese relay computer the size of a room.
If you're interested in relay computers, the Harwell WITCH at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park is worth a look (as is everything else there). It uses relays for the logic and decatrons --- a kind of valve which can store a single decimal digit, and can be advanced or retarded with a logic pulse, and if there was ever a piece of technology which had 'Sam' written all over it, this is one --- for the storage. It's beautiful. It's a true stored-program computer capable of running programs from RAM, and it's so slow that a trained mechanical calculator operator can outperform it... for a while. ua-cam.com/video/2QBcnSMF7c8/v-deo.html
I was in my early teens in the late 1970s and I used to love wiring up relays to make latches and buzzers. It helped that my uncle worked for British Telecom (formerly Post Office Telephones) and taught me a few things. I seem to remember I pulled the ringer solenoid out of an ancient rotary phone and tried to see what I could make it do. So much fun!
You should check out the insides of an electro-mechanical pinball machine it's an amazing thing full of relays solenoids and switches. It's basically an EM computer.
I just started planning a design for a 32-bit relay calculator... Complete with an integer add, subtract, multiply, and divide ALU, decimal display and keypad, ... I'm planning this thing to have in the ball park of 1,000-10,000 relays running at about 5-10hz. Needless to say, I love relays.
Legitimately you’re so god damn awesome, seriously I have never commented on a youtube video but you are just a genius. Mad props Love everything you do.
Fascinating. For an art installation, I imagine putting a glass cube in a public square with a vertical panel in the middle (a more robust breadboard type thing) where people from both sides of the panel could grab modules, plug them and play around with music and blinky leds. Make the platform and the people rotate and you have a hit. The reason for the cube is to keep the sound inside to comply with sound regulations.
Whoa.Another brilliant idea for a wellspring thereof.Reminding me of Raymond Scotts first sequencers so clicky they had to put it in anther room from the recording part.But now they put the mike in the engine room.
I love how you made a totally normal SR latch, including the Q and not-Q outputs (with the normally-open being the Q I guess?), it's just relays instead of semiconductors. And an SR latch is the basis of SRAM chips AIUI, so you've made electro-mechanical SRAM! Since it keeps its state as long as it's kept powered and doesn't need refreshed. Pretty cool. That buzzing noise you demonstrated is the basis of most electromechanical doorbells and buzzers too. Sometimes they attach a hammer to the relay coil so it can hit a bell, but sometimes it just buzzes inside a little box which kind of resonates with the buzz. And some older commercial buzzers made very different noises if you switch between AC and DC. As a kid I thought traditional doorbells and door buzzers were totally different, but really they just close a switch to a similar coil. It just depends whether they want a big box with a bell attached, or a little box which just buzzes. Of course a lot nowadays they're not electromechanical at all... but my doorbell still is! (You can even hear the coil buzzing after the bell goes, if you continue to hold the button.)
When I was 11 I made a two bit binary telephone exchange to switch 4 lines on a home made telephone intercom between my friend's house - the phone was just carbon granual microphones in series with the speaker and two d-cell batteries. It meant I could switch it with only a single 4 core cable (using a shared ground)
Check out latching telecoms relays. I built an 8 step counter for a drum sequencer out of those, you only need one relay per step. But, not as flexible as yours - it only counted up one relay at a time and then reset. I also didn't know about diodes at the time, so the switch matrix for the drum signals was very unpredictable!
Relais compared to transistors is like comparing Steam engines to petrol engines. With steam you can see all the moving parts do their thing, with petrol you just put petrol in and get power out. Steam is so much more fun as are relais. ^___^
I created a Relay Buzzer and was playing with it by inputing Morse Code. A ham radio friend called me that lived about 500 feet away and said he was receiving morse code on all the frequencies that he had available. I explained what I was doing. Then I realized that it was me doing that. I bet that you are causing radio wideband frequency noise when your setup is working. Lesson learned - Flyback diodes are importent.
The IBM 029 keypunch and 059 verifier, which in the early 1960s replaced the 024/026/056 models from the 1930s/1940s, replaced the rack-mounted relays with reed relays mounted on a motherboard.
Hmm. The mechanical durability of these relays seem to be pretty high (guaranteed 24 days or 48 days constantly running at 300bpm - little confused about their "DC coil" vs "AC coil" distinction on the spec sheet). Their rating for the "electrical" portion is much lower though. Like 2 days 7 hours at 30bpm? It's confusing to me that they say it is "max operations/hr: 1800 for the electrical portion".
Kiss fm and wlr. Towerblock dreams. Soul mafia. Gunplexors and amps in a concrete tube . My kinda night. I admire yout skills with breadboards and circuit design and flow. Your very close to some flip flops and adds. ors hahah that clock rate tho. Ready for midi send.
6:27 - a slight variation there and you can make an oscillator, then add a vehicle ignition coil and a condenser, and you can have some real fun... and I just noticed I landed back here after a whole year.
Nice video. But at 2:09 you said the relay has 2 Poles. Actually, it has 2 Throws. A pole is a seprate circuit and the throws are the number of ways each circuit can be switched. That relay is a 4 Pole 2 Throw because it has 4 switch circuits each with 2 positions. Most relays are 2 Throws no matter how many Poles they may have.
Don't do that thing That makey breaky thing I'm normally open but I don't Condone that tricky thing That clicky-clacky thing With coils making magnets, no I won't
Four things come to mind... 1. Relays make me think of Robbie the Robot 2. Have you ever seen the computer in the TV series "The Time Tunnel"? 3. You could make the relay version of the Marble Machine 4. Wonder what you could do with ping pong balls sent through a pneumatic tube where the balls interrupt beams of light to do something.. (Piing Pong Theremin)
I love how this man, looks like a speed-snorting, violent, analfabetic british punk-rocker... But is such a technical/physics genious and musician! :o :D. Greetings from Norway.
EM stepper units would be great for sequencing (as that is what they are designed for). However, it might be tricky getting a hold of ones that do what you want and also they run on 24-48V not just 5V. However, it would drastically cut down the number of relays for a full scale sequencer. Try contacting Joe's Classic Video Games to see if he has any totally junk pinball machines he can salvage parts from.
@Look Mum No Computer cool :-) Next, do a relay switch matrix that can be used as patch memory for a modular system setup ;-) So you could have all of your modules hooked up to the relay switch matrix and the switch matrix can be programmed to connect these modules together anyway you like effectively bringing patch memory to a modular setup. So i'm imagining you could have a small piece of assisting software for building and saving patches. Do you know if something like that exists already? Else i'm sure there would be a market for it :-D
In the past I designed a PCB with relais (DIP version) to control a TT, tangential turntable (Philips FP 146). Gave it to friend to make a PCB of it, never received a PCB and lost the design schematic. Why people want to be that evil? Relais are cool and easy to understand because you can see or hear what they actually doing, a great way to learn logic.
flyback diodes are only needed if a relay is powered from some transistor based gate. not when it's powered from another relay or a switch. the other relay won't give a damn about it's inductive load possibly sending some power back. which is usually fine up to a few 100 volts anyway :P (unlike with let's say, a transistor ;) don't recall ever seing a flyback diode in any purely relay based switchboxes. in fact quite a few of those even don't bother with dc and just run on unregulated ac :P and if instead of the supposed 24 volts it peaks to like 100 or 200 sometimes. that doesn't matter either :P not a single chip or transistor there that can break :P 'muh it's just 24 volts right so i'm gonna feed this into this zener and optocoupler and then off to the mcu' 'auch' 'now why did i just get a shock of that just 24 volts' kinda stuff :P (obviously interfacing such stuff due to being ac also 50hz'es the hell out of your input gates but besides that in practice the voltage usually is a lot higher than what it's supposed to be ;) those relays on that breadboard are just 'that sort of relay' btw. they normally plug into a 1 unit wide din hutschienen rail thingy. for 'low' voltage switching stuff. :P (touch it and you still feel it so it aint that low ;) the lifetime limiting factor is not how fast you switch them but how big the spark is that comes out when it does :P making it go back and forth like a million times per hour at just a few volts and milliamps won't hurt it. it's the switch contacts that usually die. not the mechanical part. die as in it has welded itself shut against a contact rail :P
3:05 The relay in that audio device example is to prevent it from outputting an audio signal before the AC coupling capacitors have had a chance to reach a quiescent state (I love that term). Once they have had enough time to charge, the relay connects the audio-out to the 'gubbins'. Essentially, this is to prevent that "THUMP!" sound when it turns on, or for it to output a tiny sound that takes time to grow into the full output. It's often interpreted as evidence that the manufacturer has "spared no expense" and that the product is overall higher quality; proving to your homies that it was worth the price when they inevitably attempt to clown you for paying too much. It was more significant during the Vacuum tube era, as it served as a signal to 'OCD'-types that the minutes of waiting for power-up were complete. This saved them hours of "making sure" time, and made it okay to turn off the system after use (resulting in lower tube life and increased service and parts revenue). People still remember that, so it must be present to justify the price of a 'premium' model; even if the design is modernized and the relay sound is simulated to save cost. (this is not a claim that your particular relay sound is bogus) Humorously, avoiding the loud thump also results in a need to make the relay "CLICK!" loudly, so that it can still serve to justify the inflated price, and to reduce service calls.
In the future I'd love to use relays or solonoids, attached to analog potentiometers with 90° arcs determined by levers attached to the solonoid. So that, during the delay, between the on & the off: two analog signals are swinging up and down. Then those signals will be the real heart of the computation, and the delay where it is definively on or definitely off, will be like blank signals. So during the low arc and high arc, radio signals are multiplexed throught it, and pass through electromechanical radio optica prisms and stuff to do calculations, and different bands of spectra can contain a range of amplitude data, and the same stream of info can be looped back and passed over the same wires and through the some of the same processors but on a different radio frequency so as not to combine the datas. Then they go into some kinof "packet-izer" circuit to have an op-codes added to their words. Instead of words being opcodes/addresses, instead they'd just be labels that are binary amplitude patters which will get reinterpreted as flat lines so that the analog transforms done over them can be more obvious. Rushed this, will edit add more. Or, I'd use thermal relays, and thermristers, wired into an oscilator, and then I'd use heatpipes and thermometers to do calculations; and I'd shield it from ambient radiation, and have a self-thermo-regulating; smooth computer that goes nice and slow, and uses thermal energy as data. That would still be digital, unlike the radiowave one would be analog with digital signals only serving as landmarks for data packets. This one would be purely digital using its own waste heat as its data, so it would probably fail if it was too hot or too cold, since absolute zero would prevent thermo-mechanical expansion, and too much heat would obviously just melt it, or push the noise floor up into the signal ceiling: resulting in an undefined illegal output. Either way, both those things sound fun and interesting; practicality be danged🤘‼ Although I probably won't for a very long time, so I'm glad I can get my obscure/retro technology fix from youtube. TLDR: Thank you for existing. PS: cable boxes send radiowaves through wires. So what I want from the first one is just an imagining of an optical computer but the optics are radio-optics. All the other mechanical stuff, is to create an even continous data storage, so that it natively supports floating point. Frequencies in nature are discrete though, so, the multiplexed radio frequencies would be less-continuous than the continuous amplitude maths inside of them.
Best place to get continuous duty relays on a budget is a car junkyard. U pull and pay, LKQ , Reitman auto parts it doesn't matter, each car has at least 8 and they're cheap.
I wonder if I can turn my unused DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor into a little sequencer using the hacks. Doing it analog by hand is far cooler tho. And it's reminding me of when piston got added to Minecraft Beta 1.8 when I was a kid
That big relay looks like a signalling relay which they had thousands of them. All becoming available now as they are being switched out for newer systems. Some of those relays would have been working for 50-60 years at least I would expect.
The pain to understand and use the knowledge of relays, and or latching relays was quiet hard in the start, when I was in school I programmed a pneumatic actuated convayer belt using PLC, the memory bank was just a ratsnest of RS moduels and logic gates.
That is indeed a railway relay, and they are* used to implement something called relay "ladder" logic ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay_logic ) that is used to control switch points and signalling. *You'll note I used the present tense "are" as opposed to the past tense "were". If you've ever wondered why the UK rail network is a shambles, well now you know why. That's right, the door that you see at the station that says "relay room" is literally still that...
Careful with the room full of relays. There is an anecdote from germany, I can not source or confirm it but apparently back in the 60's? a relay based telecommunication operators exchange thing machine whatever of considerable size was built into a post office on the upper floor. And when they were testing it there was a stage when it got switched off and hundreds of throusands of tiny metal latches adding up to a considerable weight fell a few millimetres towards the floor - through which the whole machine promptly went. Sadly I only heard it once and have no actual sources for the story.
When I was 13 I wrote a program in basic on my BBC micro to switch the tape motor relay on and off at different rates to produce tones and play "New Life" by Depeche Mode.
You can use the property of "must engage voltage" , the "holding voltage" and the "must let go voltage" of the relay. To make simple latching and reset circuits. If you under and over volt relays. The holding voltage can be much lower than the engage voltage, and the let go voltage is even lower. You can take advantage of this property of a relay hysteresis.
You can use a zener diode and a diode in series as recirculating circuit, the magnetizing current will be extinguished faster and you could switch the relay even faster. I pretty sure you won't read this but maybe will help someone. Very nice channel!!!
My John Deere lawnmower is full of these. No purpose for them. Engine says running with out all of them (4) and only need the solenoid to get it started. One day I’m gonna delete them and straight wire it with a 15amp fuse instead of 4 relays
name a type of relay
Telegraph Relay, courtesy of Samuel Morse
Toggle relays! Some have set/reset pins, while others just flip-flop when powered.
@@truthbydesign5146 funnily enough some people had dispute of making them before he did funnilty enough!±!!idid speak anbout it in the vid but ended editing it out it got a bit long and windy haha
@@angst_ indeed! thatys what im going to use to make the preset memory
The Re Lay relay idk :)
Edit: in fact no, the blue ones in Sam's speak and spell
"left it running for about 10 hours". In other words you fell asleep with it running 😉
Relay chatter soothes the soul!
lmao so true
He never sleeps
I hope some schools will consider visiting your museum with their classes. Math, physics and yes, music. So MUCH to learn!
ABSOLUTELY, this would be a great way to get kids excited about science and math.
As a kid into electronics when I discovered relays, they opened up another world. Sam you’re taking it above and beyond. Kudos.
For me, relays simply open up my front gate. How did you get other worlds to open for you?
@@sofascialistadankulamegado1781 just use more of them!
It's like Minecraft in real life! Wait ...
hahaha
well it's been done...
ua-cam.com/video/SbO0tqH8f5I/v-deo.html&ab_channel=legomasta99
I'd rather watch people playing with real Legos than MC. That game needs to die.
@@hollowneedles bad take. minecraft is great
hello seamless
Hey, it's Mothers Day. Call ur mum. Show her this so she knows you're still not using a computer. She'll be proud.
is it mothers day?
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER You damn well better have called her! Unless she's dead. Then I apologize for my insensitive comments.
@@hollowneedles apparently mothers day is this weekend coming. different countried different dates i guess
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER in austria it was yesterday
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER Yep, appears to be. Cuz Christian reasons. Based on what I could glean from a quick Google search, our mother's are holier than yours. I think. So they get early access to half-hearted gifts and a 5 minute phone call.
"The rattling of the relays of the Z4 [relay computer] was the only interesting thing to be experienced in Zurich's night life” - Konrad Zuse
The breadboard section of this video reminds me of Ben Eater :)
14:37 - Heinbach sneaks up, records the relays, plays it back at 1/4 speed, showers it with delay and spring reverb and... slowly grins... to himself!
Put a mic in there, amplify it and you've got percussion
@@tomvesely4008 That would make it a sequencer AND a drum machine, all in one - I love that idea!
@@tomvesely4008 multiple contact mics
Two relays switching each other was fun back in the days.
"Just stare at it for a while until it starts making sense" - A nice philosophy for life.
This MAD MAN.. make a synth out of hair one day
He's liked the comment so it's probably on his drawing board now.
Brilliant, mate!
My surname is SAYLER; that is an anagram of RELAYS.
I really like relays, too.
It's also an anagram of SLAYER \m/ hahaha
The sound of a relay is already music to me.
It is an electromechanical drum machine when it's not controlling anything
"... a room full of relays ..."
Find a time machine and set the target date for 1940s through 1970. Go back and visit the phone company's local "switching station" in Anytown U.S.A., Great Britain. or Europe. You will find not just a room full of relays, but an entire building full of them - top to bottom, wall to wall. These were rotary relays that advanced one detent with each clock pulse. Each relay had 1 Normally Closed contact (#0) and 9 Normally Open contacts (#1 - #9) Each contact was wired to a different but specific bank of relays. As you dialed a number, your phone would pulse (clock) the rotary relays working your way through a maze of relays to finally connect your phone to any other phone in that switching station network. By 1970s dialing (1+area code) had been implemented which triggered the initial entry relay to connect your phone to another switching station designated by the area code on a long distance phone line or "trunk line". These were essentially building sized mechanical relay computers who's biggest problem was the heat that was generated by the rotary servos on a Sunday afternoon when most people decided to call their Mums.
Don't forget the boys calling back the girl the met the Saturday night before ;-)... All that copper now condensed to a mere glass fiber
Fascinating old school infrastructure
Stepping relays like that haven't been used in the US phone system for a long time. The Western Electric crossbar switches (AFAIK) only used regular relays and counted in a digital method, producing a 2 of 5 code.
@@eDoc2020 It probably depended on the area. I saw it in operation first hand in 1964. It was in a rural area, occupied a small re-purposed house, and was right across the street from where I went to school. It was a favorite "class trip" for the science class. The buzzing and clicking of all those relays was defining ... but extremely fascinating to a 5th grader.
@@3DPDK It seems independent telephone companies as well as rural Bell offices would tend to use older Strowger systems instead of the newer and more complicated Panel and Crossbar systems which only made sense for more urban areas. I guess that makes us both right.
look mum no transistor
Kinda random, but I've been trying to make a really complicated function in a spreadsheet and haven't been able to find a tutorial on how to do it, as it is a really weird application.
Seeing your demonstration of how memory bits work in your machine just gave me a eureka moment, and I think I've realized how to do it! Thanks a lot!
Ahah I wish you were my teacher back in school.. I would be Definitely more focus on the lesson, instead of burning capacitors and led and other components to see all the cool explosion!
Btw is that crepuscular thingy also a relay??
Ps. You really rely on relays on this one!
The reason that one setup sounded like a turn signal in a car is because that's what most older cars actually used for that.
Also if looking for an interesting example of programmable stuff with relays, might want to try finding some info on one of those marquee signs that dates back to the 1920's or 1930's. From what I recall they programmed them with punch cards that would block the light going to a set of photoresistors, but once the text was in the "memory" it kept looping kind of like the setup in this video's example. Crazy that they figured out that stuff way back before vacuum tube or even solid state computers.
Well yeah haha that's why I said it! Unmistakable :D
The clicking on the relays is music in itself. I bought 600 mini latching relays a long time ago from an army surplus shop and made lots of burglar alarms for friends and local shops. that was in the 80s. I wish I had saved some as I would have sent them over to you. great interesting work Sam :-)
That is brilliant. I love how they sound on their own. Quite musical sounding clicks actually. Great stuff!
With the chip shortage I think relays and vacuum tubes may very well make a come back lol.
Using a (Hybrid) Vacuum Tube amplifier with my PC, it sounds great!
(It's a Xduoo MT-602, with some old GE 5654W valves in it, super fun clunky switch on it too)
Don't have anything with absolute relay madness in it yet though, might be a fun project!
Very cool I rember myself when I was younger playing with relays because I liked how they clicked fast forward today I'm in my last year electromechanics
Take a shot everytime Sam says "relay"
Canr type anynire too creink
Cool project concept! Relays with latching circuits where very common in lift logic / elevator control circuits until the 1980’s. They where combined with very complicated electromechanical devices to register the lift’s position in the shaft. Also, the the more advanced lift controllers have a memory function where it can store multiple calls. There are some video’s on UA-cam made by lift enthusiasts explaining the design of these circuits. Some old lifts may still have their original relay controller, you can typically hear them working when the lift is moving. It’s essentially an electromechanical computer.
I have a sound card with relays in. It's broken sadly...but it was cool to hear it click when you changed to headphones
Sam you should become an actual school "teacher" as you have a really unique way of demonstrating things that would resonate with adolescents.
You kinda remind me of the BBC childrens presenterJohnny Ball.
At this point I just want to see the relay beatstep pro sequence the megadrone
God I can't wait to come and visit your museum
11:07 picture of Phil Mitchell pops up on the word "sequencer" wtf 😂
"I could build a computer"
*confused_look_at_channel_name*
One of my favorite quotes of the year thus far...“Just stare at it for quite a while and it will start to make sense”
It's always fascinating to me to look up etymologies for words like this. Relay comes from "exchange tired animals for fresh," hence its meaning in a relay race or in a telegraph relay station.
Speaking of which, consider the origin of "bug" in computing - it dates back to the days of relay computers. A literal bug in the relay contacts.
Relays are cool, i used to install telephone exchanges in the early 70's
The telephone relays (type 3000) have wiping contacts, just after they make contact, they move further and wipe across the contact faces, ths keeps them clean and reliable, looked like that big relay did the same, btw, is the contact block supposed to move (black block holding the contacts at the base) ?
Telephone relays can also have delays, they use a slug of metal on part of the coil,
I once built a cascade timer using first relay to turn on the next etc, the last relay in the chain releaased them all, this was a challenge in training sholl, the tutor was impressed by my method, i even said i could slow it down using capacitors.
Some amplifiers have a relay that connects to a dummy load inside when you turn it on, then connects to the speaker after a delay (anti thump), could be a similar thing in your audio device.
Yup, heard the click in my USB soundcard and my little hybrid vacuum tube amp (Xduoo MT-602) when they start, neat to know what they're doing, especially since the tube amp seems to wait until the heaters have got the tubes working before the audio kicks in.
Good to know it's protecting my headphones from unnessisary power surges!
12:30 oo so you made a relay shift register?
very cool!
We peaked with relays.
What about a... relay DAW? 🙂
Im loving these videos! Learning this stuff is really fun in this style. It's cool to see how relays seem to be easy enough to latch and stuff!
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
(Everybody move to prove the groove)
How can you just keep impressing me with your constructions? Great work Sam - and great video as always! 👌🏻
You can't fool me, that's a drum machine.
Super cool! And i haven't even watch this video yet!! Awsome!!
So do you use your GF as kind of an "average person" to get impressions of your museum exhibits?
So clicky!! So inificient! So overkill! But still cool. What about using reed relays? But I guess you couldnt potentially sequence a room full of vacuum cleaners with tiny reeds.
Was the extra bit wasn't just switch bouncing issues? Also checkout CuriousMarc's channel. He has a video showing a working Japanese relay computer the size of a room.
No it's not bouncing
The "Tiny Little Pulse" circuit is called a rising edge detector :)
If you're interested in relay computers, the Harwell WITCH at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park is worth a look (as is everything else there). It uses relays for the logic and decatrons --- a kind of valve which can store a single decimal digit, and can be advanced or retarded with a logic pulse, and if there was ever a piece of technology which had 'Sam' written all over it, this is one --- for the storage. It's beautiful. It's a true stored-program computer capable of running programs from RAM, and it's so slow that a trained mechanical calculator operator can outperform it... for a while. ua-cam.com/video/2QBcnSMF7c8/v-deo.html
I was in my early teens in the late 1970s and I used to love wiring up relays to make latches and buzzers. It helped that my uncle worked for British Telecom (formerly Post Office Telephones) and taught me a few things. I seem to remember I pulled the ringer solenoid out of an ancient rotary phone and tried to see what I could make it do. So much fun!
You should check out the insides of an electro-mechanical pinball machine it's an amazing thing full of relays solenoids and switches. It's basically an EM computer.
I just started planning a design for a 32-bit relay calculator... Complete with an integer add, subtract, multiply, and divide ALU, decimal display and keypad, ... I'm planning this thing to have in the ball park of 1,000-10,000 relays running at about 5-10hz.
Needless to say, I love relays.
Thanks for relaying the info on the relay
You’re so industrious 😎
Legitimately you’re so god damn awesome, seriously I have never commented on a youtube video but you are just a genius. Mad props Love everything you do.
LMNC is a mad genius in all the best ways, really a treat to watch
This has Raymond Scott written all over it. Cool!
Wow just posted that.yeah u rite
Fascinating. For an art installation, I imagine putting a glass cube in a public square with a vertical panel in the middle (a more robust breadboard type thing) where people from both sides of the panel could grab modules, plug them and play around with music and blinky leds. Make the platform and the people rotate and you have a hit. The reason for the cube is to keep the sound inside to comply with sound regulations.
Whoa.Another brilliant idea for a wellspring thereof.Reminding me of Raymond Scotts first sequencers so clicky they had to put it in anther room from the recording part.But now they put the mike in the engine room.
Yes!! His stuff might not be the most engaging electronic music but it certainly is interesting from an engineering perspective.
I love how you made a totally normal SR latch, including the Q and not-Q outputs (with the normally-open being the Q I guess?), it's just relays instead of semiconductors. And an SR latch is the basis of SRAM chips AIUI, so you've made electro-mechanical SRAM! Since it keeps its state as long as it's kept powered and doesn't need refreshed. Pretty cool.
That buzzing noise you demonstrated is the basis of most electromechanical doorbells and buzzers too. Sometimes they attach a hammer to the relay coil so it can hit a bell, but sometimes it just buzzes inside a little box which kind of resonates with the buzz. And some older commercial buzzers made very different noises if you switch between AC and DC.
As a kid I thought traditional doorbells and door buzzers were totally different, but really they just close a switch to a similar coil. It just depends whether they want a big box with a bell attached, or a little box which just buzzes. Of course a lot nowadays they're not electromechanical at all... but my doorbell still is! (You can even hear the coil buzzing after the bell goes, if you continue to hold the button.)
When I was 11 I made a two bit binary telephone exchange to switch 4 lines on a home made telephone intercom between my friend's house - the phone was just carbon granual microphones in series with the speaker and two d-cell batteries. It meant I could switch it with only a single 4 core cable (using a shared ground)
Check out latching telecoms relays. I built an 8 step counter for a drum sequencer out of those, you only need one relay per step. But, not as flexible as yours - it only counted up one relay at a time and then reset. I also didn't know about diodes at the time, so the switch matrix for the drum signals was very unpredictable!
Relais compared to transistors is like comparing Steam engines to petrol engines. With steam you can see all the moving parts do their thing, with petrol you just put petrol in and get power out. Steam is so much more fun as are relais. ^___^
Couldn't one make a metronome with a relay?
yes
His 'Ooos' made me remember The Fast Show... "Ooh, Ooh... All that relaying, Sir... Just slowly relay it to her, Sir... Suit you, Sir... Ooh..."
リレーの音いいよねぇ
つか、テンション高杉だろ
* this 高杉 is a slang expression
One is stuck playing the impassioned protagonist in one’s Subjective Narrative of Self 🔻
Relays are awesome! soo satisfying to hear them click. very robust electro mechanical engineering with a huge pedigree.
I created a Relay Buzzer and was playing with it by inputing Morse Code. A ham radio friend called me that lived about 500 feet away and said he was receiving morse code on all the frequencies that he had available. I explained what I was doing. Then I realized that it was me doing that. I bet that you are causing radio wideband frequency noise when your setup is working.
Lesson learned - Flyback diodes are importent.
The IBM 029 keypunch and 059 verifier, which in the early 1960s replaced the 024/026/056 models from the 1930s/1940s, replaced the rack-mounted relays with reed relays mounted on a motherboard.
so like a "Roland TB-303" similar sequencer setup, you hold a key to add value.. ;)
Hmm. The mechanical durability of these relays seem to be pretty high (guaranteed 24 days or 48 days constantly running at 300bpm - little confused about their "DC coil" vs "AC coil" distinction on the spec sheet).
Their rating for the "electrical" portion is much lower though. Like 2 days 7 hours at 30bpm? It's confusing to me that they say it is "max operations/hr: 1800 for the electrical portion".
Fantastic.
It makes a lovely sound all on its own.
ha thats the plkan!
Kiss fm and wlr. Towerblock dreams. Soul mafia. Gunplexors and amps in a concrete tube . My kinda night. I admire yout skills with breadboards and circuit design and flow. Your very close to some flip flops and adds. ors hahah that clock rate tho. Ready for midi send.
6:27 - a slight variation there and you can make an oscillator, then add a vehicle ignition coil and a condenser, and you can have some real fun...
and I just noticed I landed back here after a whole year.
Nice video. But at 2:09 you said the relay has 2 Poles. Actually, it has 2 Throws. A pole is a seprate circuit and the throws are the number of ways each circuit can be switched. That relay is a 4 Pole 2 Throw because it has 4 switch circuits each with 2 positions. Most relays are 2 Throws no matter how many Poles they may have.
Don't do that thing
That makey breaky thing
I'm normally open but I don't
Condone that tricky thing
That clicky-clacky thing
With coils making magnets, no I won't
Four things come to mind...
1. Relays make me think of Robbie the Robot
2. Have you ever seen the computer in the TV series "The Time Tunnel"?
3. You could make the relay version of the Marble Machine
4. Wonder what you could do with ping pong balls sent through a pneumatic tube where the balls interrupt beams of light to do something.. (Piing Pong Theremin)
I love how this man, looks like a speed-snorting, violent, analfabetic british punk-rocker... But is such a technical/physics genious and musician! :o :D.
Greetings from Norway.
EM stepper units would be great for sequencing (as that is what they are designed for). However, it might be tricky getting a hold of ones that do what you want and also they run on 24-48V not just 5V. However, it would drastically cut down the number of relays for a full scale sequencer. Try contacting Joe's Classic Video Games to see if he has any totally junk pinball machines he can salvage parts from.
@Look Mum No Computer cool :-) Next, do a relay switch matrix that can be used as patch memory for a modular system setup ;-) So you could have all of your modules hooked up to the relay switch matrix and the switch matrix can be programmed to connect these modules together anyway you like effectively bringing patch memory to a modular setup. So i'm imagining you could have a small piece of assisting software for building and saving patches. Do you know if something like that exists already? Else i'm sure there would be a market for it :-D
In the past I designed a PCB with relais (DIP version) to control a TT, tangential turntable (Philips FP 146). Gave it to friend to make a PCB of it, never received a PCB and lost the design schematic. Why people want to be that evil? Relais are cool and easy to understand because you can see or hear what they actually doing, a great way to learn logic.
flyback diodes are only needed if a relay is powered from some transistor based gate. not when it's powered from another relay or a switch. the other relay won't give a damn about it's inductive load possibly sending some power back. which is usually fine up to a few 100 volts anyway :P (unlike with let's say, a transistor ;) don't recall ever seing a flyback diode in any purely relay based switchboxes. in fact quite a few of those even don't bother with dc and just run on unregulated ac :P and if instead of the supposed 24 volts it peaks to like 100 or 200 sometimes. that doesn't matter either :P not a single chip or transistor there that can break :P 'muh it's just 24 volts right so i'm gonna feed this into this zener and optocoupler and then off to the mcu' 'auch' 'now why did i just get a shock of that just 24 volts' kinda stuff :P (obviously interfacing such stuff due to being ac also 50hz'es the hell out of your input gates but besides that in practice the voltage usually is a lot higher than what it's supposed to be ;) those relays on that breadboard are just 'that sort of relay' btw. they normally plug into a 1 unit wide din hutschienen rail thingy. for 'low' voltage switching stuff. :P (touch it and you still feel it so it aint that low ;) the lifetime limiting factor is not how fast you switch them but how big the spark is that comes out when it does :P making it go back and forth like a million times per hour at just a few volts and milliamps won't hurt it. it's the switch contacts that usually die. not the mechanical part. die as in it has welded itself shut against a contact rail :P
3:05 The relay in that audio device example is to prevent it from outputting an audio signal before the AC coupling capacitors have had a chance to reach a quiescent state (I love that term).
Once they have had enough time to charge, the relay connects the audio-out to the 'gubbins'. Essentially, this is to prevent that "THUMP!" sound when it turns on, or for it to output a tiny sound that takes time to grow into the full output. It's often interpreted as evidence that the manufacturer has "spared no expense" and that the product is overall higher quality; proving to your homies that it was worth the price when they inevitably attempt to clown you for paying too much.
It was more significant during the Vacuum tube era, as it served as a signal to 'OCD'-types that the minutes of waiting for power-up were complete. This saved them hours of "making sure" time, and made it okay to turn off the system after use (resulting in lower tube life and increased service and parts revenue). People still remember that, so it must be present to justify the price of a 'premium' model; even if the design is modernized and the relay sound is simulated to save cost. (this is not a claim that your particular relay sound is bogus)
Humorously, avoiding the loud thump also results in a need to make the relay "CLICK!" loudly, so that it can still serve to justify the inflated price, and to reduce service calls.
In the future I'd love to use relays or solonoids, attached to analog potentiometers with 90° arcs determined by levers attached to the solonoid.
So that, during the delay, between the on & the off: two analog signals are swinging up and down.
Then those signals will be the real heart of the computation, and the delay where it is definively on or definitely off, will be like blank signals.
So during the low arc and high arc, radio signals are multiplexed throught it, and pass through electromechanical radio optica prisms and stuff to do calculations, and different bands of spectra can contain a range of amplitude data, and the same stream of info can be looped back and passed over the same wires and through the some of the same processors but on a different radio frequency so as not to combine the datas.
Then they go into some kinof "packet-izer" circuit to have an op-codes added to their words.
Instead of words being opcodes/addresses, instead they'd just be labels that are binary amplitude patters which will get reinterpreted as flat lines so that the analog transforms done over them can be more obvious.
Rushed this, will edit add more.
Or, I'd use thermal relays, and thermristers, wired into an oscilator, and then I'd use heatpipes and thermometers to do calculations; and I'd shield it from ambient radiation, and have a self-thermo-regulating; smooth computer that goes nice and slow, and uses thermal energy as data.
That would still be digital, unlike the radiowave one would be analog with digital signals only serving as landmarks for data packets.
This one would be purely digital using its own waste heat as its data, so it would probably fail if it was too hot or too cold, since absolute zero would prevent thermo-mechanical expansion, and too much heat would obviously just melt it, or push the noise floor up into the signal ceiling: resulting in an undefined illegal output.
Either way, both those things sound fun and interesting; practicality be danged🤘‼
Although I probably won't for a very long time, so I'm glad I can get my obscure/retro technology fix from youtube.
TLDR: Thank you for existing.
PS: cable boxes send radiowaves through wires. So what I want from the first one is just an imagining of an optical computer but the optics are radio-optics. All the other mechanical stuff, is to create an even continous data storage, so that it natively supports floating point.
Frequencies in nature are discrete though, so, the multiplexed radio frequencies would be less-continuous than the continuous amplitude maths inside of them.
Best place to get continuous duty relays on a budget is a car junkyard. U pull and pay, LKQ , Reitman auto parts it doesn't matter, each car has at least 8 and they're cheap.
I wonder if I can turn my unused DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor into a little sequencer using the hacks.
Doing it analog by hand is far cooler tho. And it's reminding me of when piston got added to Minecraft Beta 1.8 when I was a kid
That big relay looks like a signalling relay which they had thousands of them. All becoming available now as they are being switched out for newer systems. Some of those relays would have been working for 50-60 years at least I would expect.
Lets count the times sam said relay in this video!!
The pain to understand and use the knowledge of relays, and or latching relays was quiet hard in the start, when I was in school I programmed a pneumatic actuated convayer belt using PLC, the memory bank was just a ratsnest of RS moduels and logic gates.
please someone tell me they counted the exact number of times he said "relay". Because I gotta know lmao
Speaking of relay computers: ua-cam.com/video/_j544ELauus/v-deo.html
That is indeed a railway relay, and they are* used to implement something called relay "ladder" logic ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay_logic ) that is used to control switch points and signalling.
*You'll note I used the present tense "are" as opposed to the past tense "were". If you've ever wondered why the UK rail network is a shambles, well now you know why. That's right, the door that you see at the station that says "relay room" is literally still that...
Careful with the room full of relays. There is an anecdote from germany, I can not source or confirm it but apparently back in the 60's? a relay based telecommunication operators exchange thing machine whatever of considerable size was built into a post office on the upper floor. And when they were testing it there was a stage when it got switched off and hundreds of throusands of tiny metal latches adding up to a considerable weight fell a few millimetres towards the floor - through which the whole machine promptly went.
Sadly I only heard it once and have no actual sources for the story.
When I was 13 I wrote a program in basic on my BBC micro to switch the tape motor relay on and off at different rates to produce tones and play "New Life" by Depeche Mode.
You can use the property of "must engage voltage" , the "holding voltage" and the "must let go voltage" of the relay. To make simple latching and reset circuits. If you under and over volt relays. The holding voltage can be much lower than the engage voltage, and the let go voltage is even lower. You can take advantage of this property of a relay hysteresis.
Stare until it makes sense 🤣🤣don’t think I will live that long
“Makey breaky” … “switch thing”. Hold up - how am I meant to understand such complex terms?
I love hearing the relays click. I especially like the self sustaining 1 bit circuit.
You can use a zener diode and a diode in series as recirculating circuit, the magnetizing current will be extinguished faster and you could switch the relay even faster. I pretty sure you won't read this but maybe will help someone. Very nice channel!!!
My John Deere lawnmower is full of these. No purpose for them. Engine says running with out all of them (4) and only need the solenoid to get it started. One day I’m gonna delete them and straight wire it with a 15amp fuse instead of 4 relays
That's a real big relay? I thought it was just a model, maybe even functional, but I'm surprised that these are/have been in real world use.
One of the reasons I like EM pinball machines is 'cause they're basically highly specialized relay computers.