Very cool, I did a similar thing on my channel when building a 3d printed optical kinematic mount. It had rough and fine adjustment for the pitch axis. I used spring steel and had one end fastened down so it deformed instead of pivoting. The reduction on the fine adjust was a combo of the leaver action + deformation of the spring. It's in a video called "3d Printed Laser Spatial Filter" and about 3 minutes in.
I have no idea what the practical use for this mechanism would be, but, like. I love seeing people play with engineering like this. Very cool way to explore and understand - so thanks for sharing!
I mean clearly moving something very tiny amounts linearly.:p Practically? Hard to say, optics usually. Metrological stuff too. I wonder if you could somehow combine two of them for x,y movement. That I could see being really useful. Though given the size and mechanism I'm not sure you could. Maybe like x,z movement lol.
I was thinking ‘differential screws’ all the way through. You can stack them too. Only: at some point local heat development due to friction becomes a noticeable factor. Though I don’t know from where.
It's like those infinite reduction gearboxes you see built on youtube all the time (or used to). Amazing art/concept pieces, but the internal stresses and friction would lock up and destroy the machine before the output even moved a nanometer. Of course on paper, given infinitely strong frictionless gears...
I could see this being used in a precision pneumatics/hydraulics sensor, pitot/static pressure sensors, calibrated reference comparison, manufacturing equipment adjustment tools... really anything that needs to be precisely functional to a specific arbitrary value could benefit from a mechanism like is shown in this video- the reliability of a single-piece flexture seems like it could be particularly useful in a "no fail" design, where other redundancies in a system are the only other things keeping people safe.
Your design certainly still includes ratios of spring constant ratios, as well as length ratios. If you tried to make two identical copies, the largest difference between their overall ratios would be the reproducibility of the spring constants of the two sections of the bending beam, both from material variation and dimensional variation.
I've seen very cool adjustment mechanisms in Hewlett-Packard microwave equipment, combining several flexure and screw mechanisms... nice to see your work here.
Glad someone else read that book! If you want to build a really simple tunneling sensor (not an AFM or STM those are hard). You can do it with just a few pieces of glass with some gold evaporated on them attached to a simple few component electrical circuit.
ps I never got better than a hundred nm out of a DM-13 differential micrometer... and you can always add that to your deleveraging flexure. With electrostatic feedback you quickly become thermal noise limited.
That was cool. Seems like you could make a dual setup back to back or cascaded and kind of folded on itself to be compact and get you a crazy precise reduction.
Thanks for the interesting video. I think this is a very clever mechanism, I have been in the high-tech industry for 13 years now. You did a proper analysis of the disturbances in the mechanism build with respect to your concept/diagram. One thing you missed is the force required to move the 4-bar (parallelogram) mechanism. I think that is a larger disturbance then the stiffness off the frame. And that also explains why the ratio is higher (34 actual vs 32 designed, IIRC). Because the 4-bar mechanism force will resist the motion of the diving board. A lack in stiffness of the frame would make the ratio lower, I think. I wonder how you view this, it would be a nice exercise to map out all the forces and stiffnesses at play in the mechanism, but also cumbersome. Keep up the good stuff!
I think that the observation in regards to the arch of the diving board (?), is quite brilliant really, but i also think that it might be exploited in ways you might not have considered. This arch will no doubt, of course depending on choice of material ( butter is probably not very suitable), be reasonably consistent and relatively symmetrical, though i suppose it doesn't need to be. I think this arch can enable further precision, if you consider, this where my machining vocabulary fails, a smaller board, resting on both ends on this arch, and most notably, what difference it makes when you move it of center of the arch. This adjustability will not be linear of course, but probably wont be all that far off.
Since you mentioned differential screws at the end :). Differential screws are even more compact and can be if spring loaded. It also easier to change the gears on the late to build an odd pitch like M10X1.05 and used with M10X1 you get 50 microns per rotation. To get to 50nm you would need 1000 lines say 0.5mm apart on a wheel which will have a diameter of 0.5 X 1000 /3.14 = 159mm (about 6"). That's quite big of a dial. So probably your solution is better for small displacement. Wonder if one can setup a gear ration on a late to get a 1.005 pitch... that would make the dial just 16mm or 5 times bigger at 90 mm and line to line is 10nm
I was thinking about the ball in the coarse adjustment screw, that any eccentricity in its mounting also causes a slight change in the "ratio"....hmmm, maybe you could use an eccentric ball to change the pivot point, and thus the ratio, in an almost microscopic amount, which would shift the output in tiny increments. Also, the bend in the "short arm" must be affected by its stiffness, so making it thicker than the other arm makes its motion less... Getting to have some of the characteristics of a coupled spring reduction? I'd also be concerned about temperature effects on both the length and modulus of the arms, but it could be built into an isothermal environment... I did some work, getting onto 24 years ago, on 3d scanning of items at "far field" distances, which drove me into some research in precision and kinematics. I worked with our machining guy, and software guy, and we were able to measure the "flatness" of a plate at about 500 mm distance, so that we could see the difference with pressing the air between the plates... And, developed a fixture, with differential TC materials, to maintain the distance from measurement camera to test mounting point, stable against reasonable temperature changes.... Sorry, reminiscing....
This is really fantastic, thanks! . Any other cookbooks or example-laden books on microprecision mechanism design? I have the little blue book and a few others on compliant mechanisms, but always looking for more.
I tried finding your IG and couldn't. It's not in YT profile and google didn't send me to the right place either can you share a link? thanks@@cylosgarage
Interesting! You may get more references to differential screws than you care, but I just MUST put my spoon in the soup, so to say. My first and possibly only experience with differential screw was for force magnifying on a Carbon Load Bank. It consisted of two 90 degree angled ceramic, or glass (or likely asbestos (!)) plates, 35-some, 1/4 inch thick carbon plates in a stack, copper plates with provision for cable connections at each end, and then a pressure plate pushed with the mentioned differential screw. One end was fixed and the other end had a hand wheel for pressing the carbon pile tighter (for lower resistance) or looser for increased resistance. The two ends were tied together with 4 half-inch thick steel rods. The whole thing could handle for a short time some 200 to 400 A with 6 to 15 V. It was used for test-loading welding power supplies. There also was an undesired non-linearity and resistance drift. I remember how mis-use every so often caused red glow and smoke appearing between some pairs of the carbon plates. Eventually the differential screw system failed and we had to discard it. Well, the carbon plates at same time were also in quite poor shape, and we did not have a source for spare plates either.
I think you need a very good lathe to make great differential screws, and also remember aspects like preloading. Just a normal screw can already do down to 10 millionths if it is precision made, I believe. A lapped screw could perhaps the same? I do not know what to do with precision above this. Except for laser and semiconductor stuff.
After looking up what a differential screw is, I gotta say it looks awfully similar in function to those hyper compact gearbox designs that people have built on multiple occasions thinking it's gonna be a huge revolution in the industry. The output is the difference between two slightly different gear ratios, meaning it has to endure the force of the output at the speeds of the input and will break or wear out long before you get any good use out of it. It's really only good for adjustment mechanisms.
It is interesting and thanks! One source of error, is it not, due to the thickness of the beam where the "course" adjust screw is on the right side as we see in the video, and the "fine" adjust on the left side of the beam. None the less, pretty cool.
There's another unmentioned factor changing the displacement, not just Hertzian deformation. The location accuracy of the holes & the ball contact points adds some error to the ratio of the lengths, and thus to the output ratio. I don't know how you produced those holes & haven't bothered to calculate how much that might matter, but I'd expect it to be similarly significant. The mentioned error sources are likely larger than this.
Wow. What a brilliant demonstration! Just saying that this is "just" a waterjet cut demonstration model might be the understatement of the month, though. This is nothing short of a perfect demonstration of a principle. Most people define the flextures a little closer by means of reamed holes. Did you do something if the sort? Also, you convinced me in 10 secobds flat to buy a book :)
I love it. Super cool project. Love compliant mechanisms. I would have loved to see a plot, with rotation (input) on one axes and displacement (output) on the other. Just to see how linear this ends up being. Maybe just every 90 deg. (and the "in" confuses me, I am disappointed that we have standardized the computer and shipping containers but not measurements but there is no hope this will happen in my life time)
Using this with differential screws instead of those you use then the accuracy is insane. It would be cool if there was some way to integrate such precision onto a lathe so we could mass produce certain complex and accurate parts. I just need some ideas what to manufacture :(. Maybe differential screws and some spindle stuff like tapered collet holders for cnc machines, custom bearings, hydrodynamic spindles...
I’m a new viewer. I used to work in my university’s machine shop. Could you explain what kind of lab/shop you are in? Is it production or part of a school? What are the goals of your lab? I’m learning so much here… Thanks!!
An interesting application could be as focus for precision optics. Also instead of a flat design, imagine the beam was a circular disk, the coarse adjust was a ring, and the fine adjust was an outside ring. (Just revolving the mechanism)
I think the ability to disconnect the lever from the fine adjustment knob is not necessary. Without it, the coarse knob should just have a ratio of 17/32 instead of 1/2
reading the comments is just as enriching as ur straightforward video wow. so then noob q, sorry: is this at any point functioning like a capacitor or basic stud finder? when you explain the toroidal field around the copper ring i believe i understand that it’s similar to a ferrite donut wrapped with copper. induction, right? but do the separate plates, when powered, have to ability to demonstrate density or a separation of their field? again sorry to ask like that it’s all i got.
how do you manufacture something like that? it looks almost 3d printed, so its hard to believe it was created using additive manufacturing, but i wouldnt belive you if you say you carved that out of a block. Are there small welds that i am not seeing between al the parts?
Seems like two obvious options come to my mind initially. One would be use a weak spring between the fine knob and the input to the "diving" board to eliminate the set screw. Second option is put the fine adjust knob "floating" on the diving board and make the diving board have its own floating "datum" base (second much stiffer diving board that shares the same base pivot). The first option is probably easier since there's a single datum.
For a certain range it may also be possible to use his design and simply not use the set screw if the stress and strain will allow. That was the original way I thought he would use it before he introduced the set screw.
The threads are lubricated with CMD Extreme Pressure Lube #3, an extremely high film strength thick oil that reduces stiction and makes it extremely smooth to turn
Is it possible to make flexure with comparable performances from stainless shims like "INSIZE FEELER GAGE TAPE" that is sold in various thicknesses? I don't have access to water jet or WEDM to make it from uniform material. Fixed point to be spot welded or maybe some clamping mechanism?
I just made a few flexures from .008" 17-7PH and used clamping details. A few words of advise when doing this: make sure you have enough clamping load to prevent slipping of the shims, and don't stack shims to try and make it stiffer. Stacking makes the slipping issue much worse and the two flexures tend to spread apart and then snap back together. Fun fact, if you want to see this affect just take a paperback book and bend it back and forth holding the spine and the loose ends like the clamped flexure.
I get it’s a measurement device for extremely fine machining but it would be cool if we actually say you measure something just to show how it could be practically used. I am not an engineer or a mathematical expert in the least I think I am just slightly above average when it comes being able to understand stuff like this so for me. It’s impossible for me to understand the math. I got a D in geometry which I don’t entirely think was me as much as I probably needed a tutor but I adore watching engineering videos, and understanding various concepts and solutions for mechanical operations but the actual equations I can’t do, I don’t understand the scientific symbols, I got your point that it came out to a 1 to 34 ratio and even using the fulcrum to do more gross adjustments prior to using the lever. It seems like it’s a much more robust way to measure variances in surface height on a plane of metal or any other material as what I usually see is a very delicate needle attatched to a gauge and the fact this is more encased and can use heavier peice of metal and a more durable frame makes it seem like a better measurement device in shops where these devices get exposed to say.. measuring the length of deformation of a piece before a catastrophic break. Where I see people destroy multiple gauges in a single video. Having the actual gauge housing be seperate from the device makes it more ideal for measuring destructive deformation just my thoughts. I just want to point out that I tend to lean towards this type of heavy information science than popular science but intelligence wise I am not capable of fully understanding how to make it myself. I don’t know what the line at the bottom of the device was hooked up to or how that electronic gauge reads what I assume is the precession of the wire in the hose. My point is it’s very rare I see videos aimed at educating people at my intelligence level usually when I find stuff sufficiently interesting then people don’t actually express theory or practical application. And when I look for theory for beginners I get stuff so dumbed down it’s completely obvious and boring/useless as a result. The point of my point is people like me exist who are interested but really would want just a few more terms to look in to and a bit more context on what made you perform the experiment so we can educate ourselves. I laughed at the beginning when you said my favorite chapter in and the read the title because I thought “yup we all have a couple of copies of that lying around”… Not a book I knew existed obviously. I’m just longing for more content that doesn’t assume that if your interested in complex material you must be doing the science yourself or in the community. I own a CNC and a lazer cutter but I don’t think I could ever understand how to machine things to tolerance using traditional methods. I for instance don’t understand how to know how much pressure a given width of steel of any particular type could handle or how to even look it up past just looking for “steel width psi” in a search but I don’t for instance understand how figure out how many pounds a spring can push at a given width of deformation, because they write spring math in some strange measurement I don’t understand instead of just providing at half length the spring is pushing with x amount of pounds of force. It’s a frustrating limit to my intelligence that complex math does not come easily to me and a lot of engineering projects don’t have simple figures like that when you go to order springs online. It forces me when I am building an arcade stick to purchase springs from an arcade distributor because they actually label them one pound two pound etc. when I know that they are marking them up by a factor of ten or more just because I am too stupid to understand newtons per mm or whatever the measurement is. I am willing to learn but as I said there are a lot of beginner videos and a lot of extremely advanced videos but very little in the level of practical application for intelligent beginners. Instead you get basic concept with zero actual application, or extremely advanced concept where your expected to know what the terms mean with full on application. I get frustrated because I feel if you just stopped to explain how the equations are to be understood and what terms actually mean I could approach figuring things out. This has little to do with this video as much as it has to do with my experience of researching my interests on video. I don’t watch videos like this because I have any reason to besides I love watching engineering being applied by people but I get jealous that I don’t seem to have the drive or intelligence to get to that level. I complained in highschool about “why do we need to learn math what on earth would we use this stuff for” if someone had stopped and said if you ever want to build machines like engines or guns or understand robotics you will need to understand this stuff I probably would have been thrilled but nobody explained that stuff to me. And I am fourty now kinda struggling to understand this stuff way past my brain’s optimum learning period lol. Anyways it’s a beautiful mechanism and one I think actually does have legitimate applications because usually these type of measuring devices are very delicate, and this is a big length of (spring steel) I am guessing, also as you mentioned even if you knock it out of alignment because you can reset the fulcrum it means you could really hit it hard and just readjust and keep measuring. And the fact that the actual measuring mechanism is so far away from the point of contact or point of action it means again your much less likely to break a dial. So I think there are very legitimate uses anytime your measuring tolerances in failure scenarios. That’s what I can see, I can also see these instruments being pretty beefy and still being extremely precise which is another plus. I haven’t seen a precision measuring device I could call robust but this definitely is so I think it is actually worth look into more. Thanks for making videos it’s hard to find people doing this sort of stuff. Best Wishes.
Very nice mechanism and explaination. Thank you for the video :) In case you don't already know, you may also find the JWST Telescope mirror adjustment mechanism interesting. It uses a slightly different approach using flexures for very fine adjustment. Breaking Taps made a very good video about it: ua-cam.com/video/5MxH1sfJLBQ/v-deo.html
On metric versus imperial: since 1959 the imperial is defined by referencing to the metric system whereas the metric system references to a physical constant; the speed of light. This means, as far as which system is superior, that the imperial system is the clear loser. Instead of the meaningless and confusing calculations needed to arrive at, e.g. an inch you could cut out the middleman and use the metric system as it is. Also, a system that consistently uses 10, 100, 100 - and not 12 (foot / inches), 36 (yard / inches) or 1760 (mile / yards) is - of course - better.
That’s a good conversion to memorize if you are a person who works in small distances. 1 thou = 25.4um. 1mm = 39.4 thou. Divide by 1000 if you are a nano tech nerd. Multiply by 1000 if you are a construction worker
There are many great things about your channel, but one of the best is the way you're expanding my library.
Same!
I'm going to have to buy more bookshelves soon!
+1
I literally bought this book just now.
Must be in good company.
You have my utmost respect for "I don't really have a use for this." Building something purely because it's cool is awesome. :D
Very cool, I did a similar thing on my channel when building a 3d printed optical kinematic mount. It had rough and fine adjustment for the pitch axis. I used spring steel and had one end fastened down so it deformed instead of pivoting. The reduction on the fine adjust was a combo of the leaver action + deformation of the spring. It's in a video called "3d Printed Laser Spatial Filter" and about 3 minutes in.
Aha, wonderful application. Love your stuff Bryan!
I have no idea what the practical use for this mechanism would be, but, like.
I love seeing people play with engineering like this. Very cool way to explore and understand - so thanks for sharing!
They use something similar to this in the JWST to adjust the individual mirrors
microscopes, micromanipulators
I mean clearly moving something very tiny amounts linearly.:p
Practically? Hard to say, optics usually. Metrological stuff too.
I wonder if you could somehow combine two of them for x,y movement. That I could see being really useful. Though given the size and mechanism I'm not sure you could. Maybe like x,z movement lol.
Due to the last 30s of the video:
Differential screws! For the adjustment knobs! Make a hand-powered atomic force microscope!
I was thinking ‘differential screws’ all the way through. You can stack them too. Only: at some point local heat development due to friction becomes a noticeable factor. Though I don’t know from where.
@@Calligraphybooster Differential ball screws! Less friction, and even less sanity after trying to get all the balls in. What's not to like?
@@PeregrineBF absolutely love it!
It's like those infinite reduction gearboxes you see built on youtube all the time (or used to). Amazing art/concept pieces, but the internal stresses and friction would lock up and destroy the machine before the output even moved a nanometer. Of course on paper, given infinitely strong frictionless gears...
I could see this being used in a precision pneumatics/hydraulics sensor, pitot/static pressure sensors, calibrated reference comparison, manufacturing equipment adjustment tools... really anything that needs to be precisely functional to a specific arbitrary value could benefit from a mechanism like is shown in this video- the reliability of a single-piece flexture seems like it could be particularly useful in a "no fail" design, where other redundancies in a system are the only other things keeping people safe.
Your design certainly still includes ratios of spring constant ratios, as well as length ratios. If you tried to make two identical copies, the largest difference between their overall ratios would be the reproducibility of the spring constants of the two sections of the bending beam, both from material variation and dimensional variation.
I like this!
Interesting to see the demonstration of how sensitive the setup is.
I've seen very cool adjustment mechanisms in Hewlett-Packard microwave equipment, combining several flexure and screw mechanisms... nice to see your work here.
Just found your channel through Breaking Taps. Really enjoying your research and explanations. Cheers man!
They use these ultraprecision designs in optics such as adjusting the alignment of mirrors on James Webb Space Telescope
Fascinating and instructive video, I’m envious of your tools and measurement devices!
Glad someone else read that book! If you want to build a really simple tunneling sensor (not an AFM or STM those are hard). You can do it with just a few pieces of glass with some gold evaporated on them attached to a simple few component electrical circuit.
ps I never got better than a hundred nm out of a DM-13 differential micrometer... and you can always add that to your deleveraging flexure. With electrostatic feedback you quickly become thermal noise limited.
Your bent beam is a ratio of stiffnesses. That's a very satisfying design though.
It's not the geometry of the lever arc?
That was interesting, appreciate You showing us that, that’s a wild way to have to go about it but that set up is impressively sensitive!
That was cool. Seems like you could make a dual setup back to back or cascaded and kind of folded on itself to be compact and get you a crazy precise reduction.
Thanks for the interesting video. I think this is a very clever mechanism, I have been in the high-tech industry for 13 years now. You did a proper analysis of the disturbances in the mechanism build with respect to your concept/diagram. One thing you missed is the force required to move the 4-bar (parallelogram) mechanism. I think that is a larger disturbance then the stiffness off the frame. And that also explains why the ratio is higher (34 actual vs 32 designed, IIRC). Because the 4-bar mechanism force will resist the motion of the diving board. A lack in stiffness of the frame would make the ratio lower, I think. I wonder how you view this, it would be a nice exercise to map out all the forces and stiffnesses at play in the mechanism, but also cumbersome. Keep up the good stuff!
Nice to see you still using, and from what I see, using a lot, an actual paper book! 😂 Great stuff 👍👍
Thanks. It gives me ideas relative to something that I'm going to have to do later in the year.
I think that the observation in regards to the arch of the diving board (?), is quite brilliant really, but i also think that it might be exploited in ways you might not have considered.
This arch will no doubt, of course depending on choice of material ( butter is probably not very suitable), be reasonably consistent and relatively symmetrical, though i suppose it doesn't need to be. I think this arch can enable further precision, if you consider, this where my machining vocabulary fails, a smaller board, resting on both ends on this arch, and most notably, what difference it makes when you move it of center of the arch.
This adjustability will not be linear of course, but probably wont be all that far off.
Super interesting mechanism. Thanks
I love this kind of content, so happy you made last video so I found this channel, most likely going to binge alle your content
Since you mentioned differential screws at the end :). Differential screws are even more compact and can be if spring loaded. It also easier to change the gears on the late to build an odd pitch like M10X1.05 and used with M10X1 you get 50 microns per rotation. To get to 50nm you would need 1000 lines say 0.5mm apart on a wheel which will have a diameter of 0.5 X 1000 /3.14 = 159mm (about 6"). That's quite big of a dial. So probably your solution is better for small displacement. Wonder if one can setup a gear ration on a late to get a 1.005 pitch... that would make the dial just 16mm or 5 times bigger at 90 mm and line to line is 10nm
Another great video Cyrus. Fascinating.
Top class, well done, enjoyed that.
I was thinking about the ball in the coarse adjustment screw, that any eccentricity in its mounting also causes a slight change in the "ratio"....hmmm, maybe you could use an eccentric ball to change the pivot point, and thus the ratio, in an almost microscopic amount, which would shift the output in tiny increments.
Also, the bend in the "short arm" must be affected by its stiffness, so making it thicker than the other arm makes its motion less... Getting to have some of the characteristics of a coupled spring reduction? I'd also be concerned about temperature effects on both the length and modulus of the arms, but it could be built into an isothermal environment... I did some work, getting onto 24 years ago, on 3d scanning of items at "far field" distances, which drove me into some research in precision and kinematics.
I worked with our machining guy, and software guy, and we were able to measure the "flatness" of a plate at about 500 mm distance, so that we could see the difference with pressing the air between the plates... And, developed a fixture, with differential TC materials, to maintain the distance from measurement camera to test mounting point, stable against reasonable temperature changes....
Sorry, reminiscing....
This is really fantastic, thanks! . Any other cookbooks or example-laden books on microprecision mechanism design? I have the little blue book and a few others on compliant mechanisms, but always looking for more.
I have a post on my instagram of the same name where I show our shop library. Many essentials in there. Thanks!
I tried finding your IG and couldn't. It's not in YT profile and google didn't send me to the right place either can you share a link? thanks@@cylosgarage
very cool. that is so interesting. thanks for sharing.
Interesting! You may get more references to differential screws than you care, but I just MUST put my spoon in the soup, so to say. My first and possibly only experience with differential screw was for force magnifying on a Carbon Load Bank. It consisted of two 90 degree angled ceramic, or glass (or likely asbestos (!)) plates, 35-some, 1/4 inch thick carbon plates in a stack, copper plates with provision for cable connections at each end, and then a pressure plate pushed with the mentioned differential screw. One end was fixed and the other end had a hand wheel for pressing the carbon pile tighter (for lower resistance) or looser for increased resistance. The two ends were tied together with 4 half-inch thick steel rods. The whole thing could handle for a short time some 200 to 400 A with 6 to 15 V. It was used for test-loading welding power supplies. There also was an undesired non-linearity and resistance drift. I remember how mis-use every so often caused red glow and smoke appearing between some pairs of the carbon plates. Eventually the differential screw system failed and we had to discard it. Well, the carbon plates at same time were also in quite poor shape, and we did not have a source for spare plates either.
I think you need a very good lathe to make great differential screws, and also remember aspects like preloading. Just a normal screw can already do down to 10 millionths if it is precision made, I believe. A lapped screw could perhaps the same? I do not know what to do with precision above this. Except for laser and semiconductor stuff.
Fascinating story, thanks for sharing! (I wonder what the actual force was that was being exerted on the pile? I’ll bet it was pretty huge.)
Fascinating, like always!
I enjoy your channel. Thank you!
Really cool, thanks for sharing.
That's amazing and I just wanted to let you know that.
After looking up what a differential screw is, I gotta say it looks awfully similar in function to those hyper compact gearbox designs that people have built on multiple occasions thinking it's gonna be a huge revolution in the industry.
The output is the difference between two slightly different gear ratios, meaning it has to endure the force of the output at the speeds of the input and will break or wear out long before you get any good use out of it.
It's really only good for adjustment mechanisms.
thank you for the book name... I was searching something in this field lately
It is interesting and thanks! One source of error, is it not, due to the thickness of the beam where the "course" adjust screw is on the right side as we see in the video, and the "fine" adjust on the left side of the beam. None the less, pretty cool.
There's another unmentioned factor changing the displacement, not just Hertzian deformation. The location accuracy of the holes & the ball contact points adds some error to the ratio of the lengths, and thus to the output ratio. I don't know how you produced those holes & haven't bothered to calculate how much that might matter, but I'd expect it to be similarly significant. The mentioned error sources are likely larger than this.
Very interesting, informative and educational. Thank you!
Wow. What a brilliant demonstration!
Just saying that this is "just" a waterjet cut demonstration model might be the understatement of the month, though. This is nothing short of a perfect demonstration of a principle.
Most people define the flextures a little closer by means of reamed holes. Did you do something if the sort?
Also, you convinced me in 10 secobds flat to buy a book :)
I love it. Super cool project. Love compliant mechanisms.
I would have loved to see a plot, with rotation (input) on one axes and displacement (output) on the other.
Just to see how linear this ends up being. Maybe just every 90 deg.
(and the "in" confuses me, I am disappointed that we have standardized the computer and shipping containers but not measurements but there is no hope this will happen in my life time)
You blew my damn mind son. I hope you get a fat grant off this.
Nice job with the mechanism!
Using this with differential screws instead of those you use then the accuracy is insane. It would be cool if there was some way to integrate such precision onto a lathe so we could mass produce certain complex and accurate parts.
I just need some ideas what to manufacture :(. Maybe differential screws and some spindle stuff like tapered collet holders for cnc machines, custom bearings, hydrodynamic spindles...
I’m a new viewer. I used to work in my university’s machine shop. Could you explain what kind of lab/shop you are in? Is it production or part of a school? What are the goals of your lab? I’m learning so much here… Thanks!!
I work in the machine shop in the Makerspace at my university
2 microinches is 50 nm. That's pretty small but compared with the larges atom in the period table (Francium) at 290pm, 50n is 172 larger.
That is pretty dane cool. One question. Is "Flexture" a synonym of "Flexure"?
An interesting application could be as focus for precision optics.
Also instead of a flat design, imagine the beam was a circular disk, the coarse adjust was a ring, and the fine adjust was an outside ring. (Just revolving the mechanism)
The James Web telescope actually uses an array of these for its reflectors.
I think the ability to disconnect the lever from the fine adjustment knob is not necessary. Without it, the coarse knob should just have a ratio of 17/32 instead of 1/2
reading the comments is just as enriching as ur straightforward video wow. so then noob q, sorry: is this at any point functioning like a capacitor or basic stud finder? when you explain the toroidal field around the copper ring i believe i understand that it’s similar to a ferrite donut wrapped with copper. induction, right? but do the separate plates, when powered, have to ability to demonstrate density or a separation of their field? again sorry to ask like that it’s all i got.
Interesting display. I can see Trendsetter ..... is it right ?
I do hope I never encounter a copy of that book, for it very much looks like grease for a slippery slope to madness. 😅
I couldn't agree more!
how do you manufacture something like that? it looks almost 3d printed, so its hard to believe it was created using additive manufacturing, but i wouldnt belive you if you say you carved that out of a block. Are there small welds that i am not seeing between al the parts?
It’s waterjet cut out of a plate
He says waterjet part at 5:58
I wonder about combining this with a wheatstone bridge circuit. Load cells measure in uV/division or 10,000mV/10,000 divisions.
Wonder if this has been patented in the past?
probably lol
This is very nice but to make it REALLY nice - would it be possible to come up with something that doesn't need messing with the set screw?
Seems like two obvious options come to my mind initially. One would be use a weak spring between the fine knob and the input to the "diving" board to eliminate the set screw. Second option is put the fine adjust knob "floating" on the diving board and make the diving board have its own floating "datum" base (second much stiffer diving board that shares the same base pivot). The first option is probably easier since there's a single datum.
For a certain range it may also be possible to use his design and simply not use the set screw if the stress and strain will allow. That was the original way I thought he would use it before he introduced the set screw.
Very ... Very ... Nice!!
Check out differential threads
How would this work if you're using the compound?
What's a CMD-lubricated bolt?
The threads are lubricated with CMD Extreme Pressure Lube #3, an extremely high film strength thick oil that reduces stiction and makes it extremely smooth to turn
Is it possible to make flexure with comparable performances from stainless shims like "INSIZE FEELER GAGE TAPE" that is sold in various thicknesses? I don't have access to water jet or WEDM to make it from uniform material. Fixed point to be spot welded or maybe some clamping mechanism?
You can.
I just made a few flexures from .008" 17-7PH and used clamping details. A few words of advise when doing this: make sure you have enough clamping load to prevent slipping of the shims, and don't stack shims to try and make it stiffer. Stacking makes the slipping issue much worse and the two flexures tend to spread apart and then snap back together. Fun fact, if you want to see this affect just take a paperback book and bend it back and forth holding the spine and the loose ends like the clamped flexure.
Quite nifty indeed !
May I turn that knob, sir?
Here a thought: a screw is also a lever
Brilliant
super neat
Nice
Very interesting.
Micro inches XD I've never heard anything funnier. To cross the metric system and the imperial one...
I get it’s a measurement device for extremely fine machining but it would be cool if we actually say you measure something just to show how it could be practically used. I am not an engineer or a mathematical expert in the least I think I am just slightly above average when it comes being able to understand stuff like this so for me. It’s impossible for me to understand the math. I got a D in geometry which I don’t entirely think was me as much as I probably needed a tutor but I adore watching engineering videos, and understanding various concepts and solutions for mechanical operations but the actual equations I can’t do, I don’t understand the scientific symbols, I got your point that it came out to a 1 to 34 ratio and even using the fulcrum to do more gross adjustments prior to using the lever. It seems like it’s a much more robust way to measure variances in surface height on a plane of metal or any other material as what I usually see is a very delicate needle attatched to a gauge and the fact this is more encased and can use heavier peice of metal and a more durable frame makes it seem like a better measurement device in shops where these devices get exposed to say.. measuring the length of deformation of a piece before a catastrophic break. Where I see people destroy multiple gauges in a single video. Having the actual gauge housing be seperate from the device makes it more ideal for measuring destructive deformation just my thoughts.
I just want to point out that I tend to lean towards this type of heavy information science than popular science but intelligence wise I am not capable of fully understanding how to make it myself. I don’t know what the line at the bottom of the device was hooked up to or how that electronic gauge reads what I assume is the precession of the wire in the hose.
My point is it’s very rare I see videos aimed at educating people at my intelligence level usually when I find stuff sufficiently interesting then people don’t actually express theory or practical application. And when I look for theory for beginners I get stuff so dumbed down it’s completely obvious and boring/useless as a result.
The point of my point is people like me exist who are interested but really would want just a few more terms to look in to and a bit more context on what made you perform the experiment so we can educate ourselves. I laughed at the beginning when you said my favorite chapter in and the read the title because I thought “yup we all have a couple of copies of that lying around”… Not a book I knew existed obviously. I’m just longing for more content that doesn’t assume that if your interested in complex material you must be doing the science yourself or in the community. I own a CNC and a lazer cutter but I don’t think I could ever understand how to machine things to tolerance using traditional methods. I for instance don’t understand how to know how much pressure a given width of steel of any particular type could handle or how to even look it up past just looking for “steel width psi” in a search but I don’t for instance understand how figure out how many pounds a spring can push at a given width of deformation, because they write spring math in some strange measurement I don’t understand instead of just providing at half length the spring is pushing with x amount of pounds of force. It’s a frustrating limit to my intelligence that complex math does not come easily to me and a lot of engineering projects don’t have simple figures like that when you go to order springs online. It forces me when I am building an arcade stick to purchase springs from an arcade distributor because they actually label them one pound two pound etc. when I know that they are marking them up by a factor of ten or more just because I am too stupid to understand newtons per mm or whatever the measurement is. I am willing to learn but as I said there are a lot of beginner videos and a lot of extremely advanced videos but very little in the level of practical application for intelligent beginners. Instead you get basic concept with zero actual application, or extremely advanced concept where your expected to know what the terms mean with full on application. I get frustrated because I feel if you just stopped to explain how the equations are to be understood and what terms actually mean I could approach figuring things out.
This has little to do with this video as much as it has to do with my experience of researching my interests on video. I don’t watch videos like this because I have any reason to besides I love watching engineering being applied by people but I get jealous that I don’t seem to have the drive or intelligence to get to that level.
I complained in highschool about “why do we need to learn math what on earth would we use this stuff for” if someone had stopped and said if you ever want to build machines like engines or guns or understand robotics you will need to understand this stuff I probably would have been thrilled but nobody explained that stuff to me. And I am fourty now kinda struggling to understand this stuff way past my brain’s optimum learning period lol.
Anyways it’s a beautiful mechanism and one I think actually does have legitimate applications because usually these type of measuring devices are very delicate, and this is a big length of (spring steel) I am guessing, also as you mentioned even if you knock it out of alignment because you can reset the fulcrum it means you could really hit it hard and just readjust and keep measuring. And the fact that the actual measuring mechanism is so far away from the point of contact or point of action it means again your much less likely to break a dial. So I think there are very legitimate uses anytime your measuring tolerances in failure scenarios. That’s what I can see, I can also see these instruments being pretty beefy and still being extremely precise which is another plus. I haven’t seen a precision measuring device I could call robust but this definitely is so I think it is actually worth look into more.
Thanks for making videos it’s hard to find people doing this sort of stuff. Best Wishes.
Pantograph reduction 🤔 with a tattoo gun. Or expansion 🙂
Very nice mechanism and explaination. Thank you for the video :) In case you don't already know, you may also find the JWST Telescope mirror adjustment mechanism interesting. It uses a slightly different approach using flexures for very fine adjustment. Breaking Taps made a very good video about it: ua-cam.com/video/5MxH1sfJLBQ/v-deo.html
Why 20 TPI? How about 40 TPI...
On metric versus imperial: since 1959 the imperial is defined by referencing to the metric system whereas the metric system references to a physical constant; the speed of light. This means, as far as which system is superior, that the imperial system is the clear loser. Instead of the meaningless and confusing calculations needed to arrive at, e.g. an inch you could cut out the middleman and use the metric system as it is. Also, a system that consistently uses 10, 100, 100 - and not 12 (foot / inches), 36 (yard / inches) or 1760 (mile / yards) is - of course - better.
Please use metric as well! Super cool content but as an european I don't know what a THOU corresponds to
1 "thou" is .001 inch = approximately 25 micron.
That’s a good conversion to memorize if you are a person who works in small distances. 1 thou = 25.4um. 1mm = 39.4 thou. Divide by 1000 if you are a nano tech nerd. Multiply by 1000 if you are a construction worker
And just use metric if you are not disabled by your region.
Micro inches lol. Is that like a quarter banana?
Could you please switch to actual units? 😊
microinches/!?!!??!?!?! really?!?!?!!?!?!?? like really?!?!?! you would rather invent "Microinch" then use metric system?????
I didn’t invent it, it’s a common term in the field. Why do people get so offended by imperial units 😂