So I watched this video whenever it came out - feels like days ago - but this morning when I tried to close the toilet seat, I kinda instinctively threw it down to make it close faster. As I dejectedly stood there watching it drop those last couple centimeters, I’d SWEAR I heard ToT whisper “rotary dampers”. Maybe even saw the word fly across my retina. Maybe I wasn’t completely awake yet…
My wife just bought a replacement soft close seat for our boy's toilet. Once they were admiring their installation job I heard them both whisper "rotary dampers"
I keep laughing sporadically, as I keep recalling the scene created from the enjoyably descriptive text of AlphaPhoenix, conveying a superb snapshot of what seems, at first, to be a completely genuine, 100% not at all serious case, a (coincidentally and not obviously for humor) sleep-deprived encounter with a lavatory poltergeist* interfering in what a morning routine gone suddenly awry... Ah, the travails of we who arise per a dictated timetable... perpetual inhabitants of somewhere shy of full rest, thanks to our individual clock-based klaxons... This, and employment, in exchange for only rarely reaching the idyllic, sun-bleached shores of the circadian adherents. By another name, the fully rested; who rely predominantly upon the internal switchgear pre-calibrated to render most of us awake only when rested... Though our contemporary setting would see most only able to do so in exchange for our punctuality, and thus our employment, and so on, until reaching a condition of even worse rest, after losing the capacity to maintain residence in a private abode. *Lavatory Poltergeist is also on tour, this September!
My favorite example of rotary dampers was on the joystick of the F-14 Tomcat. Being designed before fly-by-magic the joystick was directly connected to the huge, 3000 psi cylinders moving the stabilators in the back, To stop excessively "maverick" pilots from ripping the stabs off in high speed maneuvers, dampers were installed to slow the pilot input. This gave ground crew the ability to punish errant fighter jocks by asking the to do several minutes of stick "wipeouts", involving moving the stick through it's full range while under a closed canopy in the hot sun. We would tell the pilot that we needed it to troubleshoot a problem, we just left out the part about the problem being them not listening to ground crew instruction.
I just want you to know, this video has given me the solution to a problem I've been trying to design around for a year. Dunno why I didn't think of it myself, but thanks.
I'd like to add, I used to have that same calculator my dad gave me from a ag industry convention... It was a cool gadget when I was 10. Thanks for the nostalgia👌
I swear. This dude could talk about anything whatsoever and I'd still put it on before bed and fall asleep to his soothing voice. Like I totally haven't done multiple times in the past. Nah uh.
TOT, you are informative and FUN! FYI: I made a "James Bond" style pedal board for a guitarist friend. He wanted "cool factor 11" but had little money, so I used the rotary dampers from an old toilet seat to make the lid open just as you mentioned here. Battery-powered LED lights turn on automatically thanks to a re-purposed switch for refrigerators. ( available online) The curious thing is, Dave was always a decent guitarist, but had trouble finding work. When he showed up to jam sessions with this "JB / cool factor 11 pedal board," other musicians noticed. That made him appear more professional... well, that and losing 60 lbs, getting some new clothes and regular haircuts. Now he gets more calls for paying gigs. It's amazing what Rotary Dampers and personal hygiene can accomplish!
This is something I've been curious about for YEARS. I'm familiar with rotory dampers, but anytime I saw those calculators, I knew there was no way they fit a full damper in there. Also, they certainly wouldn't be giving them away for free if they did. Many thanks!
The first time I learned about these was when I was working as a electronic technician back in the early 80's repairing cassette decks. I was amazed at such a simple design that creates such a cool effect, thanks Tony for the memories!
Like all the good hit songs, the brilliance is often in their simplicity. The most simple mechanism for solving a problem is always the best mechanism for the job.
It does leave me wondering about the goop. Is that just someones grease recipe with some ingredient quintupled? Did some lab spend months testing for the exact right, or just maximum, amount of goopishness? Did the manufacturer have to run their mixing vats half-empty so the motors could cope?
@@Paremo_ My humble guess is that this is what is left after a cracking process of silicon oil. When you "build" hydro silicates it's rather difficult to control the chain lengths so you end up with a mix of stuff. Fractional distillation can sort that for the shorter chains pretty easy, but once you get to boiling temperatures of several hundred degrees it's easier to just stop and start using a cracking method. This gives better yields of the lower chain length variants (which are usually in higher demand) but it also causes polymerization of chains with many side branches.... and thus you end up with some unusable "goo" ("tar" would be the hydro carbon equivalent) as a waste product... But what if that goo could be it's own product? :P
I loved the way those calculators would ease open and stand up. Had no idea how simple the mechanism was, which IMO makes the ease-open function even more impressive.
My cheap cassette deck lid mechanism just had plastic gears covered with schmoo, which worked fine at first. Every time I opened it to switch tapes those gears were exposed, and they gathered dust and lint as you would expect. It went from soft-open to pry-open within a year or so...
In the far distant past, top load video cassette decks had a rotary vane air damper to ease the otherwise violent eject mech. a little wingity thing that spun like crazy.
Engineer here, and thank you for calling them "dampers," and not "dampeners." My flight controls instructor loved calling out students who incorrectly called them "dampeners."
The goop is called viscous grease or just damping grease. For faster action you would use viscous oil - vehicle suspension, camera tripod heads. A solid state counterpart is viscous rubber. Mostly butyl, widely used in acoustics.
The best viscous grease is from Scotland, UK, where it is harvested from the scrotal sacks of the male haggis in springtime. Very very expensive. And a dangerous job to harvest. In an emergency situation dampers can be repacked with standard pig spunk but only expect half the damping qualities.
@@typhoon2827 half the damping qualities!? Are you kidding? At room temperature perhaps but the thermal-viscosity curve for pig spunk is horrific. Haggis jizz or nothing.
When everything was sticking to you and your tools, and you could see the frustration in trying to get things to just lay on the bench, I lost it lol. I learned a lot in this video honestly.
Comment off the cuff: Of all the YT channels I watch, yours is the only one I genuinely get excited about when I receive the notification of a new video. Thank you Tony for all the years of education and entertainment.
The "sticky goop" is a high viscosity silicone fluid. Most of unsealed dampers use this in some way or another. Few things will dissolve it other than siloxane solvents such as Polydimethylsiloxane (dimethicone)
@@chrisburbank6484 It "wears off" the fingers over an hour or two. "wears off" as in: transfers to everything you touch - not a big deal unless you are a spray painter. Ask a spray painter what he thinks of silicones if you want to learn some new words.
@Paul G: Polydimethylsiloxane is a key ingredient in personal lubricant -- maybe that would remove the schmoo? I've used similar Polydimethylsiloxane-based liquids when putting together bendy, tricky-to-fit rubber assemblies. It works pretty well.
@Paul G My stepdad paints cars and you should hear the things he had to say when someone put a car that had been slathered in Armor-all in his painting area. I definitely learned quite a few new words that day.
The most common damping grease is made by Rocol and is called Kilopoise. It's available in a number of grades from very light to crazy stiff. It's also stupidly expensive, but a little goes a long way. I use it for rejuvenating potentiometers that have dried out, been cleaned or feel gritty among other stuff.
I was about to write a comment that I wonder why that sticky grease is not used for all springed hinges because that makes a pretty cool rotational damper with very little parts and doesn't need any o-rings. If the grease is expensive, it's much cheaper the leave it out and forget about the damper effect.
I have seen eddy current dampers (neodymium magnet & aluminum disc). I have also seen the spring function done with a pair of coaxial magnets. There are also "friction dampers" using magnet & iron with wide hysteresis loop. These have constant drag force independent of velocity (like friction brake with constant normal force). Advantage is no goop & no mechanical wear in the brake. Expensive camera lenses are "lubricated" with viscous grease to give them the "gushy" feel. Another damper is the "butterfly" in a clock to regulate the speed of the chime movement. This is a "gas rotary damper".
@@schannoman That is a totally different animal. That's designed to stop vibration on an external input. The piano action part that is more relevant is the hammer back-check to prevent hammer bounce.
Great video. It brought to mind my curious youth. My parents couldn't understand my fascination for any mechanical contrivance they threw out or I could drag home. I would take things apart piece by piece examining how they were put together and worked. I think my dragging things home was the most exasperating part. Good thing I never came across an old x-ray unit or something!
Another very similar application is to provide a pleasing resistance to knobs, like a volume knob on a stereo. These things work not so much with baffles, but with close fitting surfaces that slide across each other (to use oil it would be more like a shock on a car which relies on oil being forced through small orifices by a moving piston). This stuff is more like really sticky grease than oil, so it won't drain out and it maximizes resistance. Like you see in the video this stuff is almost like glue. Very messy to work with. Another point is that they self-heat because they are dissipating the braking energy as heat. So they start to move faster if you cycle them a number of times. Nye Lubricants sells a wide variety of formulations of "damping grease" for these purposes. I used a Nye product on the Evertune guitar bridge to prevent high frequency vibrations which caused buzzing.
wait, the evertune? that's yours? wow, that's an amazing design, kudos! (for those watching at home, imagine a guitar where you can just twist the tuning key randomly or even push or pull on the string itself and it will _not_ change in pitch; it's kind of uncanny in real world use)
Oh geez, yeah. Nothing makes a piece of electronics feel cheap like an un-damped knob. Manufacturers could, of course, use potentiometers and rotary encoders that have built-in damping, but those cost a few cents extra.
Thanks. I also enjoy the company and humor you provide, and us neighbors to the north are happy to call AVE our own! Keep up the cool stuff you do and include us.
Some additional Info: the damper at 5:27 is usually called a Barrel or Vane Damper, depending on the manufacturer. In the automotive industry the major suppliers for interior dampers (those found in the glovebox, sunglass bin, console, etc) are Nifco, ITW and Cultraro (sorry if I am leaving anyone out). I have never seen the "spring loaded with goo" damper from any of those suppliers. I wonder if that design is durable enough for what we need. Anyone knows of a supplier of them?
Also, most small one-way rotary dampers like the plastic ones with gears shown don't use oil, they use a very stiff torsion spring tightly wrapped around a cylinder made of a low-friction plastic like PTFE or Delrin. When rotated in one direction, the torque tightens the spring around the cylinder which creates resistance, and when rotated the other direction, the spring uncoils slightly and spins freely.
@@twicecookedpork6220 That mechanism is often used in ceiling fans. It allows the blades to freewheel when un-powered, but the torque of the motor tightens the spring. to drive the fan. They will slip under heavy load, therefore adding a bit of safety I would presume.
@@squelchstuff I feel like this is a similar mechanism they use for a similar reason somewhere else. I can't think of where but I vividly remember the design. It has a solid outer ring and an inner ring in 4 pieces which fits inside just loose enough for the outer ring to spin freely. When the inner ring spins, the 4 parts of it expand outward due to centrifugal force, gripping the outer ring, and spinning it too. But also allowing it to slip if necessary, like the mechanism in the fan you described. For the life of me I can't imagine what it was for. Maybe a cheap differential in RC cars.
As someone who has a few electo mechanical devises I tinker with (typewriters, mechanical calculators, film projectors, etc) this was incredibly illuminating! Thanks Tony! This really helps understand the relationship between moving parts and their "lubrication" and how that can be used to regulate the motion in different ways, other than the standard friction reduction capacity.
@@BravoCharleses - 36, tried button shirts, nothing. Going to try getting up at 5am and having sugar/milk deficient coffee. Maybe not both at once, I don't want to over do it.
@@tnmoe- Did 5am mornings, shirts with buttons, and black coffee for 10 years. 1 out of 5. Would not recommend. Did not get smarter or gooder. Just tireder and older.
That ship sailed a long time ago. I’m twice as old with 1/2 the patience! And more engineering problems then I can shake a stick at. I know the time is right when Tony show me the solution. Bahahaha 😁
Another tony video to end the weekend. Perfection. I used to have a calculator like that in elementary school and everyone loved it. I felt so cool pulling that thing out
@@jeffnarum1373 What is the opposite of a "Damper"? A quickener? For a quickener I picture a device that is like those fake cans of Peanut Brittle with spring-loaded 'snakes'.
TOT is the only UA-camr I watch with 100% full attention because I don't want to miss anything. If you aren't paying attention you can miss the humor which I just love!
My Goodness Mr. T that let all the air out of my old dashpot. For some reason Steve Winwood's song popped into my head, something about the slow spark of high heeled dappers....I can't escape the sound. Thanks for the slow rise of a seat so wise and silent fall of a lid to seal the stench sending chores to the forefront of procrastination. Love it T...always a treat!
The magic of dampers aside this does bring me back to the swag of the 90's. I worked in marketing for a phone company in those days (don't judge me) and my god did we spend a lot of money on crappy promo items.
That is (was) a really neat, self opening, calculator that will never function again. Great destructive explanation of how dampers worked before demolition. Thanks for sharing.
Glad we get more Tony! Thank you soooooo much for uploading again n_n Iv re-watched all your videos at least 3 times now LOL The reason I wanna get into machining, even as a hobby, is 100% cause of your youtube.
I get the same feeling, whenever I see a new video I get super excited. Always quality content and I feel like I'm learning something, if only a series of great dad jokes!
Whenever I watch one of his videos, UA-cam recommends another of his videos that I've already seen, and I think "okay, I guess I'll watch one of these videos for the 3rd or 4th time." I'm not complaining.
I love your videos like this that are just "hey this is a thing that exists!" It gets added to my brain bank for things I can throw in projects. Thanks!
Glad to meet you, Shoen! I'm a fan too. I have one (?) on my toilet seat that has amazed me for about the past 6 years. Seriously, I didn't know it had that feature when I bought it. I'll celebrate with you! You bring the liquor.
No. Leave that silver plastic that rubs off and turns nasty colors in the noughties where it belongs. Atomic purple and translucent blobjects (minus clear, that's prison gadget color) need to make a comeback, and kind of already are in a niche sense
As a kid, i loved the cassette dampers, they were using a gearing to spin a little metal plate really fast, effectively using the air resistance as the damping medium.
The goop reminds me a lot of some silicon locking grease I got in a box of radio service parts back in the 80's - it was used to stop the fer rite cores moving in the tuning coils of radios, I expect it was extremely cheap so it got repurposed here! I also recall how it got everywhere, didn't wash off and when it leaked it didn't dry out, even when I discovered the leaky patch again 10 years later at the back of a dusty garage, so its clearly a well designed compound!
Diapers ...what a drag indeed! I was hoping it would be a few more years before we got this video. What? Dampers? Oh, never mind. Note: Most of the dampers used on cassette decks used the viscosity of air to do the work. Usually, a gear near the hinge would attempt to turn a worm gear at supersonic speed. That worm gear was connected to the worlds tiniest propeller which would send a cooling burst of air into the case unsettling the dust which would then fall on the read and write heads where it could do the most damage to your magnetic tape.
@@williamchamberlain2263 short albums, but subtle and deep - never the same though after their falling out with support act Dichlorodifluoromethane in 1995... Good times.
I had no idea how these work, thank you for getting all sticky for me! I was kinda hoping to see that cool trial bike of yours when it came to linear dampers, but oh well. Their use is the most clear on rc cars, on simple springs they bounce all over the place, but add dampers and they soak up all the bumps nicely.
You just sent a few memories my way, 7 years ago I had the same calculator- different branding. Was a promotional one, I got it in a charity shop. I do not know what happened it, but that was the coolest calculator I have ever seen
I remember being a kid and showing that calculator to some friends in a birthday party and everyone being shocked including some of the moms , core memories are a weird thing 😂😂
Hey Tony, I was building an ikea cabinet and when I got to the hinges step... A little ghost flew at me and whispered... rotary damperssss.. I realized he came to tell me that there's one in the soft close mechanism of the hinge. Just thought I'd share, thanks Tony for that ghost and keep up the damn(pers) work👍👍👍😁🥳
We just had this same conversation in the truck the other day, talking about the grab handles,one of the best engineered pieces of the whole damn 3500hd
Totally unrelated to the video but why did it take pick up manufacturers so fucking long to include some form of assistance to climb into the bed of trucks? Ford I know for sure and maybe the others have a step and handle "thingy" (sorry to use such technical jargon) and damn it it's so much easier and at the end of a long day your knees and back are much happier
@@jeffreyhill1011 Okay but, can we have the honest conversation here as well? I feel like truck design has consistently pushed for higher and higher stock ride height for the past 20-30 years (perhaps more?). Jumping in the back of an old C-K truck with good rear shocks is a non-issue (granted, I'm 6'3" but, it stills seem substantially lower than modern counterparts). It's honestly to the point where I'd debate on lowering a brand new 3/4 ton if I could afford one lol.
@@geraldgepes also, *WHY* the actual *FUCK* are the bed sides getting so tall as well? It's seriously absurd. I can't think of a good reason. I can think of a bad one, perhaps not wanting to lower the average height of the truck. All this shit talking aside, I'm still getting the new lightning. God knows how long it's going to take but mine is already paid for so we shall see
@@jeffreyhill1011 I think higher bed sides likely are an aesthetic choice for the most part, to maintain proportionality respective to the higher ride height without a bed that is reminiscent of a Courier or Rabbit truck. That or the higher bed has some ascribed cargo height it is trying to cover like an 8' bed fitting sheets of plywood and such. Aye, enjoy the new Lightning though, I'm working on some R&D stuff for new stators and tooling up to make stators for that truck next week! Which gets to the bigger, more painful question about trucks for me. I am a die hard Jetta TDI driver and was even more so when I thought it was better for the planet. I loved my diesel pick up because I could still get 20mpg with a lathe in the bed. But short of a 6.7 just falling into my lap (and me surviving), I'm not sure I want to spend diesel money when they seem to be going under. I'm legitimately curious what is going to happen in the heavy duty/ 3/4 ton sector in the next 10 years. But, this is me waxing rhapsodic because I can't *currently* justify it. In another year though, there will be a horse and trailer to pull on top of equipment and then I think pragmatism will take over.
@@geraldgepes I bought an older Dodge 5500 5th wheel chassis with no bed just the 5th wheel slot. Got a really nice trailer that can hold my 2019 Cat 990 H and JLG 1055 telehandler no issues (individually of course). I have a bit more than 6K acres outside St Louis,my daughters and I just got done digging and are about ready to start filling our 8 acre reservoir lake from our natural spring. I won a high 8 figure lotto and opposed to being bored I figured I would buy some really sweet toys lol. My daughters, now 18 started a resaw business at 15. Obviously not because of money but they wanted to do something and they adore wood working. I taught um fabrication and welding and machining as well but their resaw and custom milled lumber is huge now. They bought a brand new 12 mile F250 King Ranch they are making so much money. My only real splurge was a Bell 525 helicopter and the lessons to fly it myself, I know this sounds braggy but damn I always wanted a chopper so much lol.
I once worked at a place that made plastic stadium seats and they used the same spring and goop dampers you have there in the hinges, just a big bigger. They literally painted the goop on with a brush when they assembled them, properly low tech stuff.
Linear dampers can use air pressure. Make a piston with seals and have a small hole at the bottom of the tube. Piston can only move as fast as the air can get thru the hole
You can also make an air spring... The problem is that air is compressible and oils/silicone aren't. You can also ignite stuff by compressing air. Consider that before you make one of those as you can accidentally set things on fire when you slam air hard enough.
FYI: "Most aromatic (ring structure) solvents are effective at dissolving silicone oil. These include toluene, xylene and naphtha. Additionally, silicone oils are reported to be soluble in chlorinated solvents such as trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene and methylene chloride. Polar solvents such as alcohols and acetone will not be effective at dissolving silicone oils." (I would post the source but that results in the comment getting removed as spam; you can find the above quote with Google) The above matches what I found experimentally when I was working with high-CST silicone oil on a project a few years back. Also the timing of this video is really funny for me. A week or two ago I had to take apart a car phone holder because the springs has weakened and the rotary dampers were now making it take 5+ seconds to open. Very dramatic and cool looking, but really annoying to wait for when you hopped in the car and wanted to get going. So I opened it up and mixed in some less viscous silicone oil, ending with a less fancy looking but more functional phone mount which opens in 1/2 second.
Great video. I consider myself to be fairly well versed in cute mechanical solutions, but this was a new one to me. Thanks for the fun and informative video.
My mom had acquired a calculator like this when I was a young adult, and I about died laughing about a month or so later, as I saw it repainted and used as some "sci-fi" communicator on a random "made for tv" SciFi Channel show.
I think I've encountered similar goop before in a stress ball. It popped on me while I was in a car, just as we were parking at the mall. I had this horrible sticky gel coating my hands and I had to eventually get it off with paper towels in the bathroom at Macy's. Absolute nightmare.
You hit a soft spot for me. I always loved the ashtray lid in my 86 Trans Am. I couldn't help hitting the button to see it open. I didn't smoke, so I just used it as a coin tray. It was my favorite stupid button.
I always thought the linear ones are similar to car shock absorbers, that is there is an oil and a piston with some sort of hole feature to restrict the flow. The truth was way simpler :)
Thanks Tony. I have a linear damper that is fast acting in one direction and dampened the other way. It is a graphite Piston in a glass tube. It was used on the ice chute flapper on a refrigerator. Opens fast but closes slow so ice doesn't get caught. Other brands use a heat wax motor that is fast one way and slow the other.
Yes, first comment! Thanks Tony for all those years of entertaining and instructive videos. More on the Schaublin 13? Being in Switzerland, i have one as well as a Schaublin 102 lathe. Amazing old machines.
Cool video, but… No mention of one of my favorite toy lines of the 1980s, Coleco's STARCOM?! The vehicles had damped wind-up motors and would “transform” on command, like your calculator thing. They also had steel plates so the magnets in the figures' feet would stick and “defy gravity” 👍
I really like the idea of storing your excess solar energy on DVD's. You are definately a master in efficieny, and probably one of the sharper carrots in the garden... Just curious how many KwH you are getting per Gigabyte? If you use compression software like a .zip or .rar you can almost double your capacity which is excellent for those "really stormy days"... and I'm not sure but I think you might get more linear mileage using the old VHS tapes too :D
My interest in these devices has been dampened by this video. It was a shock to my system, that was absorbed during my watching. Old Austin Healy Sprites used rotary level action dampers, its unclear if they actually worked very long, you know Lucas (Prince of Darkness) Electrics kind of limited the range of those old sports cars.
I love this these videos! I could watch you talk about obscure mechanical components for hours on end. Even more hours, that is. Probably days at this point. Eventually, I should talk to someone, but for now, I appreciate that you're helping feed my habit.
Thank you so much for doing this video! I remember you mentioning doing one in a previous video and wanted input on whether or not to do one. I’m really glad you did! You are right; those gimmick calculators are near impossible to find nowadays. I’ve been wanting to pull one apart to see how these were made for a project of mine but can’t for the life of me find one. Thank you for taking one for the team and discovering the goop in the springs that’s resilient to washing off. Now I know and can maybe replicate one for my own use. Hopefully, you are able to reassemble your vintage calculator.
Whenever someone says "dampen" instead of "damp", I manage my anger by imagining the mechanism making everything wetter. I fully understand we have lost this battle, and almost everyone's gonna say dampen now.
What a strange coincidence just today, I was tossing out old collected stuff from many years of "I may need this later". Mixed in a box was a vintage Rixson surface door closer...a rotary damper. It didn't work correctly, but gave it an hour's effort to correct, no luck...the sludgy oil won. Thank you Tony!
Love TOT videos. Great info presented in a fun way. Trying to build a drop down concealed spice rack for the kitchen and wanted a rack gear and a rotary damper gear, but can’t find what I need. No 3d printer, mill or lathe so resorting to buying bits so have a ball screw and a motor so I can remote trigger it to come down and go back up. Don’t really need the accuracy but should be fun building it. Thanks TOT I’m sure people all over the world build crazy stuff because of your work. Long may you continue.
Thanks to you, the 20 year long question I had about those that even an engineering degree didn't answer was answered at last! And what a smart & simple design! (although I completely forgot about them during grad) Thanks!
When I was a kid my dad would go to business meetings and bring back all the free stuff they gave you and give it to me and my brothers. I HAD THIS CALCULATOR!!! I distinctly remember that calculator! So funny to be reminded of that haha Great video!!!
So I watched this video whenever it came out - feels like days ago - but this morning when I tried to close the toilet seat, I kinda instinctively threw it down to make it close faster. As I dejectedly stood there watching it drop those last couple centimeters, I’d SWEAR I heard ToT whisper “rotary dampers”. Maybe even saw the word fly across my retina. Maybe I wasn’t completely awake yet…
Hi love your Chanel
me too thanks
Funny, but I’d love such a thing. My youngest one knows better, but still let’s the lid slam.
My wife just bought a replacement soft close seat for our boy's toilet. Once they were admiring their installation job I heard them both whisper "rotary dampers"
I keep laughing sporadically, as I keep recalling the scene created from the enjoyably descriptive text of AlphaPhoenix, conveying a superb snapshot of what seems, at first, to be a completely genuine, 100% not at all serious case, a (coincidentally and not obviously for humor) sleep-deprived encounter with a lavatory poltergeist* interfering in what a morning routine gone suddenly awry...
Ah, the travails of we who arise per a dictated timetable... perpetual inhabitants of somewhere shy of full rest, thanks to our individual clock-based klaxons... This, and employment, in exchange for only rarely reaching the idyllic, sun-bleached shores of the circadian adherents. By another name, the fully rested; who rely predominantly upon the internal switchgear pre-calibrated to render most of us awake only when rested... Though our contemporary setting would see most only able to do so in exchange for our punctuality, and thus our employment, and so on, until reaching a condition of even worse rest, after losing the capacity to maintain residence in a private abode.
*Lavatory Poltergeist is also on tour, this September!
My favorite example of rotary dampers was on the joystick of the F-14 Tomcat. Being designed before fly-by-magic the joystick was directly connected to the huge, 3000 psi cylinders moving the stabilators in the back, To stop excessively "maverick" pilots from ripping the stabs off in high speed maneuvers, dampers were installed to slow the pilot input.
This gave ground crew the ability to punish errant fighter jocks by asking the to do several minutes of stick "wipeouts", involving moving the stick through it's full range while under a closed canopy in the hot sun.
We would tell the pilot that we needed it to troubleshoot a problem, we just left out the part about the problem being them not listening to ground crew instruction.
Were they told afterward that it was punishment?
Punishment is worse when you know you are being punished.
And then the bastards who designed the F-16 just bolted the joystick down. Ha!
Eddy current damper?
@@pgtmr2713 those are epic! And so failproof they are being used on many rollercoasters and joyrides.
@@seriousZmij Many different kinds. But I was asking if the part the op was referring to was the eddy current damper specifically.
I just want you to know, this video has given me the solution to a problem I've been trying to design around for a year. Dunno why I didn't think of it myself, but thanks.
This video has given me a problem to a solution I've had for a long time
Was it.........
Rotary dampers??
@@operator8014 Helical dampers! But yes this is a solution to a cam-like issue I was working on.
@@operator8014 Aawww, you beat me to it.
I'd like to add, I used to have that same calculator my dad gave me from a ag industry convention... It was a cool gadget when I was 10. Thanks for the nostalgia👌
I swear. This dude could talk about anything whatsoever and I'd still put it on before bed and fall asleep to his soothing voice. Like I totally haven't done multiple times in the past. Nah uh.
TOT, you are informative and FUN! FYI: I made a "James Bond" style pedal board for a guitarist friend. He wanted "cool factor 11" but had little money, so I used the rotary dampers from an old toilet seat to make the lid open just as you mentioned here. Battery-powered LED lights turn on automatically thanks to a re-purposed switch for refrigerators. ( available online) The curious thing is, Dave was always a decent guitarist, but had trouble finding work. When he showed up to jam sessions with this "JB / cool factor 11 pedal board," other musicians noticed. That made him appear more professional... well, that and losing 60 lbs, getting some new clothes and regular haircuts. Now he gets more calls for paying gigs. It's amazing what Rotary Dampers and personal hygiene can accomplish!
James Bond ????
More like Spinal Tap.
Thank you for inspiring me! I can now promptly give up on all of my goals with grace.
More evidence for the adage, "dress for the job you want" (rather than the one you got).
please, please put a video of that online. I must see the majesty of Optimus Prime's pedalboard.
I thought I was the only one with guitarist friends with little money
This is something I've been curious about for YEARS. I'm familiar with rotory dampers, but anytime I saw those calculators, I knew there was no way they fit a full damper in there. Also, they certainly wouldn't be giving them away for free if they did. Many thanks!
You can't understand how happy I am every time that I see "This old Tony" notification 😁♥️✌️
right? RIGHT?!
Yes I can... I clicked like while the pre roll ad is still going
@@cocon16_PW right!!! 🤣✌️
Oh yes I can.
@@steven_porter happy like a rotary damper?
The first time I learned about these was when I was working as a electronic technician back in the early 80's repairing cassette decks. I was amazed at such a simple design that creates such a cool effect, thanks Tony for the memories!
I remember this too ! :)
So classy ...
People think cassettes sound bad till they hear a good akai gx head!
@@frizzlefry1921 I had a Denon tape player, good speakers, and the sound was great.
Like all the good hit songs, the brilliance is often in their simplicity. The most simple mechanism for solving a problem is always the best mechanism for the job.
I'm actually respecting the simplicity of that design. Very clever.
Imagine the process of assembling them all in a factory without getting in a mess.
It does leave me wondering about the goop. Is that just someones grease recipe with some ingredient quintupled? Did some lab spend months testing for the exact right, or just maximum, amount of goopishness? Did the manufacturer have to run their mixing vats half-empty so the motors could cope?
@@Paremo_ nah, they just doubled the motors
@@Paremo_ My humble guess is that this is what is left after a cracking process of silicon oil. When you "build" hydro silicates it's rather difficult to control the chain lengths so you end up with a mix of stuff. Fractional distillation can sort that for the shorter chains pretty easy, but once you get to boiling temperatures of several hundred degrees it's easier to just stop and start using a cracking method. This gives better yields of the lower chain length variants (which are usually in higher demand) but it also causes polymerization of chains with many side branches.... and thus you end up with some unusable "goo" ("tar" would be the hydro carbon equivalent) as a waste product... But what if that goo could be it's own product? :P
Thank you for not saying 'literally'.
I loved the way those calculators would ease open and stand up. Had no idea how simple the mechanism was, which IMO makes the ease-open function even more impressive.
I used to be obsessed with those calculator things as a kid, for some reason.
It was like a fun-sized laptop! Small things are always fun!
that's what she heard
@@calinguga you got there first lmfao
Tried telling that to my boyfriend...
@@mattymerr701 que sad sound effect
@@ItsBruhzzle what a flaccid sound effect
The coolest example of rotary dampers in consumer tech is definitely soft-eject cassette decks -- not that anyone uses them anymore, but still.
One of many things that fascinated me as a child. Lol
My cheap cassette deck lid mechanism just had plastic gears covered with schmoo, which worked fine at first. Every time I opened it to switch tapes those gears were exposed, and they gathered dust and lint as you would expect. It went from soft-open to pry-open within a year or so...
In the far distant past, top load video cassette decks had a rotary vane air damper to ease the otherwise violent eject mech. a little wingity thing that spun like crazy.
I use them all the time!
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the work this man is doing to entertain and educate us man thank you very much!.
Engineer here, and thank you for calling them "dampers," and not "dampeners." My flight controls instructor loved calling out students who incorrectly called them "dampeners."
Sounds like a damper of moods
@@Jujudo Pretty sure you meant a "dampener" of moods.
@@ColonelSandersLite Only rain can dampen a mood.
You know you're an engineer when you have fond memories of your old flight instructor scolding students for calling dampers dampeners.
@@daltanionwaves good old Pat Anderson.
The goop is called viscous grease or just damping grease. For faster action you would use viscous oil - vehicle suspension, camera tripod heads. A solid state counterpart is viscous rubber. Mostly butyl, widely used in acoustics.
Thankfully I didn't have to wade through endless nonsensical comments to find this one !
What is it based on if it is not water or alcohol soluble ?
@@ian-c.01 oil-based, silicone-thickened. Exact composition is never revealed, like with any oil/grease/polymer
The best viscous grease is from Scotland, UK, where it is harvested from the scrotal sacks of the male haggis in springtime. Very very expensive. And a dangerous job to harvest. In an emergency situation dampers can be repacked with standard pig spunk but only expect half the damping qualities.
@@typhoon2827 it has to be used for deep fried Mars bars first, or it wont last as long.
@@typhoon2827 half the damping qualities!? Are you kidding? At room temperature perhaps but the thermal-viscosity curve for pig spunk is horrific. Haggis jizz or nothing.
When everything was sticking to you and your tools, and you could see the frustration in trying to get things to just lay on the bench, I lost it lol. I learned a lot in this video honestly.
rotary dampers always increase the feel of quality of a product by a lot
Plus they protect children's hands when they try to drop the toilet seat.
My favorite is those expensive cabinet hinges that you can try to slam but just at the last second: magic!
With some exceptions apparently. I was really expecting my "premium mouse traps" to sell better
Right up until they stop working...
There are exceptions.... Like the Suzuki TL1000S 😉
Comment off the cuff: Of all the YT channels I watch, yours is the only one I genuinely get excited about when I receive the notification of a new video. Thank you Tony for all the years of education and entertainment.
The "sticky goop" is a high viscosity silicone fluid. Most of unsealed dampers use this in some way or another.
Few things will dissolve it other than siloxane solvents such as Polydimethylsiloxane (dimethicone)
now you tell him
@@chrisburbank6484 It "wears off" the fingers over an hour or two.
"wears off" as in: transfers to everything you touch - not a big deal unless you are a spray painter. Ask a spray painter what he thinks of silicones if you want to learn some new words.
@Paul G: Polydimethylsiloxane is a key ingredient in personal lubricant -- maybe that would remove the schmoo? I've used similar Polydimethylsiloxane-based liquids when putting together bendy, tricky-to-fit rubber assemblies. It works pretty well.
Maybe silicon lub for sex toys will disolve it too :)
@Paul G My stepdad paints cars and you should hear the things he had to say when someone put a car that had been slathered in Armor-all in his painting area. I definitely learned quite a few new words that day.
The most common damping grease is made by Rocol and is called Kilopoise. It's available in a number of grades from very light to crazy stiff. It's also stupidly expensive, but a little goes a long way. I use it for rejuvenating potentiometers that have dried out, been cleaned or feel gritty among other stuff.
I was about to write a comment that I wonder why that sticky grease is not used for all springed hinges because that makes a pretty cool rotational damper with very little parts and doesn't need any o-rings. If the grease is expensive, it's much cheaper the leave it out and forget about the damper effect.
I have seen eddy current dampers (neodymium magnet & aluminum disc). I have also seen the spring function done with a pair of coaxial magnets. There are also "friction dampers" using magnet & iron with wide hysteresis loop. These have constant drag force independent of velocity (like friction brake with constant normal force). Advantage is no goop & no mechanical wear in the brake.
Expensive camera lenses are "lubricated" with viscous grease to give them the "gushy" feel.
Another damper is the "butterfly" in a clock to regulate the speed of the chime movement. This is a "gas rotary damper".
Don't forget piano dampers. (I'm a piano tech trying to be relevant)
@@schannoman That is a totally different animal. That's designed to stop vibration on an external input. The piano action part that is more relevant is the hammer back-check to prevent hammer bounce.
@@bpark10001 Thanks for explaining my job to me. I was being pedantic.
@@schannoman More like explaining your job for you, since you opted to complain about not being included yet didn't put forth the effort yourself.
@@nopenoperson9118 oh yay. More irrelevant sealioning
Great video. It brought to mind my curious youth. My parents couldn't understand my fascination for any mechanical contrivance they threw out or I could drag home. I would take things apart piece by piece examining how they were put together and worked. I think my dragging things home was the most exasperating part. Good thing I never came across an old x-ray unit or something!
Good thing you never got your hands on a microwave transformer
Another very similar application is to provide a pleasing resistance to knobs, like a volume knob on a stereo. These things work not so much with baffles, but with close fitting surfaces that slide across each other (to use oil it would be more like a shock on a car which relies on oil being forced through small orifices by a moving piston). This stuff is more like really sticky grease than oil, so it won't drain out and it maximizes resistance. Like you see in the video this stuff is almost like glue. Very messy to work with. Another point is that they self-heat because they are dissipating the braking energy as heat. So they start to move faster if you cycle them a number of times. Nye Lubricants sells a wide variety of formulations of "damping grease" for these purposes. I used a Nye product on the Evertune guitar bridge to prevent high frequency vibrations which caused buzzing.
wait, the evertune? that's yours?
wow, that's an amazing design, kudos!
(for those watching at home, imagine a guitar where you can just twist the tuning key randomly or even push or pull on the string itself and it will _not_ change in pitch; it's kind of uncanny in real world use)
Oh geez, yeah. Nothing makes a piece of electronics feel cheap like an un-damped knob. Manufacturers could, of course, use potentiometers and rotary encoders that have built-in damping, but those cost a few cents extra.
can you provide a pleasing resistance to my knob
@@Jujudo oh, internet...
I can see why you'd want a volume knob that heated up and turned easier as you work feverishly to find the right volume:-)
Thanks. I also enjoy the company and humor you provide, and us neighbors to the north are happy to call AVE our own! Keep up the cool stuff you do and include us.
Man. I purchased my first lathe last year because of you TOT. And I'm loving it!!!! Still learning. But it's awesome!
Liked immediately for never saying "dampener". Kudos.
Some additional Info: the damper at 5:27 is usually called a Barrel or Vane Damper, depending on the manufacturer. In the automotive industry the major suppliers for interior dampers (those found in the glovebox, sunglass bin, console, etc) are Nifco, ITW and Cultraro (sorry if I am leaving anyone out). I have never seen the "spring loaded with goo" damper from any of those suppliers. I wonder if that design is durable enough for what we need. Anyone knows of a supplier of them?
Corporate swag obviously
Also, most small one-way rotary dampers like the plastic ones with gears shown don't use oil, they use a very stiff torsion spring tightly wrapped around a cylinder made of a low-friction plastic like PTFE or Delrin. When rotated in one direction, the torque tightens the spring around the cylinder which creates resistance, and when rotated the other direction, the spring uncoils slightly and spins freely.
@@twicecookedpork6220 That mechanism is often used in ceiling fans. It allows the blades to freewheel when un-powered, but the torque of the motor tightens the spring. to drive the fan. They will slip under heavy load, therefore adding a bit of safety I would presume.
@@squelchstuff I feel like this is a similar mechanism they use for a similar reason somewhere else. I can't think of where but I vividly remember the design. It has a solid outer ring and an inner ring in 4 pieces which fits inside just loose enough for the outer ring to spin freely. When the inner ring spins, the 4 parts of it expand outward due to centrifugal force, gripping the outer ring, and spinning it too. But also allowing it to slip if necessary, like the mechanism in the fan you described. For the life of me I can't imagine what it was for. Maybe a cheap differential in RC cars.
@@gavin5410 It's called a centrifugal clutch. Also used in some snow mobiles and ATVs.
As someone who has a few electo mechanical devises I tinker with (typewriters, mechanical calculators, film projectors, etc) this was incredibly illuminating! Thanks Tony! This really helps understand the relationship between moving parts and their "lubrication" and how that can be used to regulate the motion in different ways, other than the standard friction reduction capacity.
This Old Tony, when I grow up I want to be smart and good at stuff like you. I'm 34 years old and I hope the growing up starts real soon.
i'm 35.. nothing has happened yet..
@@DizzyRonson Maybe I need to start wearing shirts with buttons.
@@BravoCharleses - 36, tried button shirts, nothing. Going to try getting up at 5am and having sugar/milk deficient coffee. Maybe not both at once, I don't want to over do it.
@@tnmoe- Did 5am mornings, shirts with buttons, and black coffee for 10 years. 1 out of 5. Would not recommend. Did not get smarter or gooder. Just tireder and older.
That ship sailed a long time ago. I’m twice as old with 1/2 the patience!
And more engineering problems then I can shake a stick at.
I know the time is right when Tony show me the solution. Bahahaha 😁
You are probably the only person on this world that can make a glorious film about this. Thanks from Sweden.
Another tony video to end the weekend. Perfection. I used to have a calculator like that in elementary school and everyone loved it. I felt so cool pulling that thing out
I have the opposite problem.
Now I'm trying to create a problem for this solution.
@@jeffnarum1373 What is the opposite of a "Damper"? A quickener?
For a quickener I picture a device that is like those fake cans of Peanut Brittle with spring-loaded 'snakes'.
TOT is the only UA-camr I watch with 100% full attention because I don't want to miss anything. If you aren't paying attention you can miss the humor which I just love!
I've only heard about RotarySMP, but I don't think he's very damp (unless there is some plumbing issues in is house)
My Goodness Mr. T that let all the air out of my old dashpot. For some reason Steve Winwood's song popped into my head, something about the slow spark of high heeled dappers....I can't escape the sound. Thanks for the slow rise of a seat so wise and silent fall of a lid to seal the stench sending chores to the forefront of procrastination. Love it T...always a treat!
The magic of dampers aside this does bring me back to the swag of the 90's. I worked in marketing for a phone company in those days (don't judge me) and my god did we spend a lot of money on crappy promo items.
That is (was) a really neat, self opening, calculator that will never function again.
Great destructive explanation of how dampers worked before demolition.
Thanks for sharing.
Glad we get more Tony! Thank you soooooo much for uploading again n_n Iv re-watched all your videos at least 3 times now LOL The reason I wanna get into machining, even as a hobby, is 100% cause of your youtube.
I get the same feeling, whenever I see a new video I get super excited. Always quality content and I feel like I'm learning something, if only a series of great dad jokes!
Whenever I watch one of his videos, UA-cam recommends another of his videos that I've already seen, and I think "okay, I guess I'll watch one of these videos for the 3rd or 4th time." I'm not complaining.
@@nefariousyawn I like the big ol playlist on the channel so I can just continuously watch through.
@@nefariousyawn yuuuup lol
I love your videos like this that are just "hey this is a thing that exists!" It gets added to my brain bank for things I can throw in projects. Thanks!
I always love when a TOT video pops up.
Loving that the opening theme music plays whenever you open the device, even softly in the background as you talk about it.
Came here for rotary dampers awareness week. I'm glad this video is spreading awareness because I've been struggling to find people to celebrate with.
Glad to meet you, Shoen! I'm a fan too. I have one (?) on my toilet seat that has amazed me for about the past 6 years. Seriously, I didn't know it had that feature when I bought it. I'll celebrate with you! You bring the liquor.
@@tomadkins2866 I'll bring the toilet seat.
@@dismalfist Damn right, bring your own! :)
I don't know what it is about that intro and the music, but it just keeps me coming back and watching those first thirty seconds, it's just so neat.
Man I miss that 2000s era silver plastic that everything was made of. We oughta bring it back.
No. Leave that silver plastic that rubs off and turns nasty colors in the noughties where it belongs.
Atomic purple and translucent blobjects (minus clear, that's prison gadget color) need to make a comeback, and kind of already are in a niche sense
As a kid, i loved the cassette dampers, they were using a gearing to spin a little metal plate really fast, effectively using the air resistance as the damping medium.
A humble thank you for never calling them dampeners.
It never ceases to amaze me how you make almost any topic entertaining and funny.
A stand up machinist?!?!
A 4-40 tap walks into a bar......
I had one of those calculators when I was younger, it was the coolest damn thing, I’d fiddle with it for hours on end.
My enthusiasm is neither dampened or subdued by this. This is awesome!
I also enjoyed your company, Thanks Tony
Thank you for not dragging it out. Excellent video 👌👏👏👍😀
The goop reminds me a lot of some silicon locking grease I got in a box of radio service parts back in the 80's - it was used to stop the fer rite cores moving in the tuning coils of radios, I expect it was extremely cheap so it got repurposed here! I also recall how it got everywhere, didn't wash off and when it leaked it didn't dry out, even when I discovered the leaky patch again 10 years later at the back of a dusty garage, so its clearly a well designed compound!
It looked like it once was a waste product that was given a purpose.
Looks like the goop used in sticky traps for pests.
Diapers ...what a drag indeed! I was hoping it would be a few more years before we got this video.
What? Dampers? Oh, never mind.
Note: Most of the dampers used on cassette decks used the viscosity of air to do the work. Usually, a gear near the hinge would attempt to turn a worm gear at supersonic speed. That worm gear was connected to the worlds tiniest propeller which would send a cooling burst of air into the case unsettling the dust which would then fall on the read and write heads where it could do the most damage to your magnetic tape.
Hence the popularity of paleo-emo band Head Cleaner
@@williamchamberlain2263 short albums, but subtle and deep - never the same though after their falling out with support act Dichlorodifluoromethane in 1995... Good times.
I had no idea how these work, thank you for getting all sticky for me! I was kinda hoping to see that cool trial bike of yours when it came to linear dampers, but oh well. Their use is the most clear on rc cars, on simple springs they bounce all over the place, but add dampers and they soak up all the bumps nicely.
You, sir, have to be top ten most interesting people I can think of. You are awesome! Thanks for the great videos!
The goop reminds me of "assembly fluid" that I've seen used at work for keeping o rings and such in place. The only thing that cuts it is engine oil.
I've always used Vaseline (Petroleum Jelly) for that assembly goop, and it seems to melt OK in Oil and Auto Transmission Fluid.
The damper on my garbage bin came loose. I now know what needs fixed. Thank you Tony
You just sent a few memories my way, 7 years ago I had the same calculator- different branding. Was a promotional one, I got it in a charity shop. I do not know what happened it, but that was the coolest calculator I have ever seen
Same here. To me back then, it was magic! Unfortunately, I also lost mine a long time ago
Dude that synth riff is so amazing, epic, and addictive! Oh and love your stuff man!
I remember being a kid and showing that calculator to some friends in a birthday party and everyone being shocked including some of the moms , core memories are a weird thing 😂😂
Hey Tony, I was building an ikea cabinet and when I got to the hinges step... A little ghost flew at me and whispered... rotary damperssss.. I realized he came to tell me that there's one in the soft close mechanism of the hinge. Just thought I'd share, thanks Tony for that ghost and keep up the damn(pers) work👍👍👍😁🥳
We just had this same conversation in the truck the other day, talking about the grab handles,one of the best engineered pieces of the whole damn 3500hd
Totally unrelated to the video but why did it take pick up manufacturers so fucking long to include some form of assistance to climb into the bed of trucks? Ford I know for sure and maybe the others have a step and handle "thingy" (sorry to use such technical jargon) and damn it it's so much easier and at the end of a long day your knees and back are much happier
@@jeffreyhill1011 Okay but, can we have the honest conversation here as well? I feel like truck design has consistently pushed for higher and higher stock ride height for the past 20-30 years (perhaps more?). Jumping in the back of an old C-K truck with good rear shocks is a non-issue (granted, I'm 6'3" but, it stills seem substantially lower than modern counterparts). It's honestly to the point where I'd debate on lowering a brand new 3/4 ton if I could afford one lol.
@@geraldgepes also, *WHY* the actual *FUCK* are the bed sides getting so tall as well? It's seriously absurd. I can't think of a good reason. I can think of a bad one, perhaps not wanting to lower the average height of the truck. All this shit talking aside, I'm still getting the new lightning. God knows how long it's going to take but mine is already paid for so we shall see
@@jeffreyhill1011 I think higher bed sides likely are an aesthetic choice for the most part, to maintain proportionality respective to the higher ride height without a bed that is reminiscent of a Courier or Rabbit truck. That or the higher bed has some ascribed cargo height it is trying to cover like an 8' bed fitting sheets of plywood and such. Aye, enjoy the new Lightning though, I'm working on some R&D stuff for new stators and tooling up to make stators for that truck next week!
Which gets to the bigger, more painful question about trucks for me. I am a die hard Jetta TDI driver and was even more so when I thought it was better for the planet. I loved my diesel pick up because I could still get 20mpg with a lathe in the bed. But short of a 6.7 just falling into my lap (and me surviving), I'm not sure I want to spend diesel money when they seem to be going under. I'm legitimately curious what is going to happen in the heavy duty/ 3/4 ton sector in the next 10 years. But, this is me waxing rhapsodic because I can't *currently* justify it. In another year though, there will be a horse and trailer to pull on top of equipment and then I think pragmatism will take over.
@@geraldgepes I bought an older Dodge 5500 5th wheel chassis with no bed just the 5th wheel slot. Got a really nice trailer that can hold my 2019 Cat 990 H and JLG 1055 telehandler no issues (individually of course). I have a bit more than 6K acres outside St Louis,my daughters and I just got done digging and are about ready to start filling our 8 acre reservoir lake from our natural spring. I won a high 8 figure lotto and opposed to being bored I figured I would buy some really sweet toys lol. My daughters, now 18 started a resaw business at 15. Obviously not because of money but they wanted to do something and they adore wood working. I taught um fabrication and welding and machining as well but their resaw and custom milled lumber is huge now. They bought a brand new 12 mile F250 King Ranch they are making so much money. My only real splurge was a Bell 525 helicopter and the lessons to fly it myself, I know this sounds braggy but damn I always wanted a chopper so much lol.
I think maybe every one of your videos has a laugh out loud moment for me. Thanks for that!
It's a good day when you see Tony's video in the sub box 🤩
Old Tony you make life greater for thousand and thousand of people!
I once worked at a place that made plastic stadium seats and they used the same spring and goop dampers you have there in the hinges, just a big bigger. They literally painted the goop on with a brush when they assembled them, properly low tech stuff.
So happy you are putting out videos again. We missed you, This Old Tony.
Linear dampers can use air pressure. Make a piston with seals and have a small hole at the bottom of the tube. Piston can only move as fast as the air can get thru the hole
You can also make an air spring... The problem is that air is compressible and oils/silicone aren't.
You can also ignite stuff by compressing air. Consider that before you make one of those as you can accidentally set things on fire when you slam air hard enough.
@@RealCadde there a video where a guy ignites cotton by slamming a plunger on UA-cam. It's pretty cool literal fire in a bottle
Always great to watch your funny and informative videos.
FYI: "Most aromatic (ring structure) solvents are effective at dissolving silicone oil. These include toluene, xylene and naphtha. Additionally, silicone oils are reported to be soluble in chlorinated solvents such as trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene and methylene chloride. Polar solvents such as alcohols and acetone will not be effective at dissolving silicone oils."
(I would post the source but that results in the comment getting removed as spam; you can find the above quote with Google)
The above matches what I found experimentally when I was working with high-CST silicone oil on a project a few years back.
Also the timing of this video is really funny for me. A week or two ago I had to take apart a car phone holder because the springs has weakened and the rotary dampers were now making it take 5+ seconds to open. Very dramatic and cool looking, but really annoying to wait for when you hopped in the car and wanted to get going. So I opened it up and mixed in some less viscous silicone oil, ending with a less fancy looking but more functional phone mount which opens in 1/2 second.
Great video. I consider myself to be fairly well versed in cute mechanical solutions, but this was a new one to me. Thanks for the fun and informative video.
My mom had acquired a calculator like this when I was a young adult, and I about died laughing about a month or so later, as I saw it repainted and used as some "sci-fi" communicator on a random "made for tv" SciFi Channel show.
Amazing. I've had this issue with a machine I made, it was a perpetual motion machine. Now I can finally stop it. Thankyou!
I think I've encountered similar goop before in a stress ball. It popped on me while I was in a car, just as we were parking at the mall. I had this horrible sticky gel coating my hands and I had to eventually get it off with paper towels in the bathroom at Macy's. Absolute nightmare.
That's some stress relief from the stress ball. XD
A leaky stress ball. Talk about a first-world nightmare.
@@stevenbastian3882 I'm sure one of the tortures in hell involves this goop coating your hands and not being able to find anything to get it off
@@gamemeister27 I hope you end up in heaven. There is probably a helpful solution there.
You hit a soft spot for me. I always loved the ashtray lid in my 86 Trans Am. I couldn't help hitting the button to see it open. I didn't smoke, so I just used it as a coin tray. It was my favorite stupid button.
I always thought the linear ones are similar to car shock absorbers, that is there is an oil and a piston with some sort of hole feature to restrict the flow. The truth was way simpler :)
I haven't even watched the video yet but I just want to say thank you for posting again and now I can watch the video.
Back 100 years ago I bought a boom box based on how smoothly the cassette door opened. I guess I'm a rotary damper snob
"Soft Eject" was definitely a discerning quality of cassette players
100🤣
Thanks Tony. I have a linear damper that is fast acting in one direction and dampened the other way. It is a graphite Piston in a glass tube. It was used on the ice chute flapper on a refrigerator. Opens fast but closes slow so ice doesn't get caught. Other brands use a heat wax motor that is fast one way and slow the other.
Yes, first comment!
Thanks Tony for all those years of entertaining and instructive videos.
More on the Schaublin 13? Being in Switzerland, i have one as well as a Schaublin 102 lathe. Amazing old machines.
thanks TOT.. you really put a damper on my day :)
Cool video, but… No mention of one of my favorite toy lines of the 1980s, Coleco's STARCOM?! The vehicles had damped wind-up motors and would “transform” on command, like your calculator thing. They also had steel plates so the magnets in the figures' feet would stick and “defy gravity” 👍
did you get sticky metal pads with them, defying gravity on plastic/wood ... would not work ...
or did you just use metal screws
Gave me a simple solution to a problem I have right now as well. Thanks Tony! Really glad you’re back!
I really like the idea of storing your excess solar energy on DVD's.
You are definately a master in efficieny, and probably one of the sharper carrots in the garden...
Just curious how many KwH you are getting per Gigabyte?
If you use compression software like a .zip or .rar you can almost double your capacity which is excellent for those "really stormy days"... and I'm not sure but I think you might get more linear mileage using the old VHS tapes too :D
Clever 😊
@@opendstudio7141 Thanks 😀
I'm so happy that you are uploading often again!
My interest in these devices has been dampened by this video. It was a shock to my system, that was absorbed during my watching. Old Austin Healy Sprites used rotary level action dampers, its unclear if they actually worked very long, you know Lucas (Prince of Darkness) Electrics kind of limited the range of those old sports cars.
You're all wet, those dampers were mostly made by Armstrong, not Lucas. :D
The 3000 I had looked like a dual piston damper design. Limited travel with 4" in the underframe
I love this these videos! I could watch you talk about obscure mechanical components for hours on end.
Even more hours, that is.
Probably days at this point.
Eventually, I should talk to someone, but for now, I appreciate that you're helping feed my habit.
This man could make a video of him digging dirt for 3 hours and I would still be completely captivated
Thank you so much for doing this video! I remember you mentioning doing one in a previous video and wanted input on whether or not to do one. I’m really glad you did!
You are right; those gimmick calculators are near impossible to find nowadays. I’ve been wanting to pull one apart to see how these were made for a project of mine but can’t for the life of me find one.
Thank you for taking one for the team and discovering the goop in the springs that’s resilient to washing off. Now I know and can maybe replicate one for my own use. Hopefully, you are able to reassemble your vintage calculator.
Whenever someone says "dampen" instead of "damp", I manage my anger by imagining the mechanism making everything wetter.
I fully understand we have lost this battle, and almost everyone's gonna say dampen now.
Oh man, the intro to this video was hilarious XD
Fun dive into how these work, too! Thanks for sharing.
Brings me back to the first product door I designed. Rotary dampers just made it so much nicer than a door that just flopped down.
Your humor is more of what the wold needs, along with your intelligence!
For a moment i thought it is the best stop-motion video produced ever.
What a strange coincidence just today, I was tossing out old collected stuff from many years of "I may need this later". Mixed in a box was a vintage Rixson surface door closer...a rotary damper. It didn't work correctly, but gave it an hour's effort to correct, no luck...the sludgy oil won. Thank you Tony!
Love TOT videos. Great info presented in a fun way. Trying to build a drop down concealed spice rack for the kitchen and wanted a rack gear and a rotary damper gear, but can’t find what I need. No 3d printer, mill or lathe so resorting to buying bits so have a ball screw and a motor so I can remote trigger it to come down and go back up. Don’t really need the accuracy but should be fun building it.
Thanks TOT I’m sure people all over the world build crazy stuff because of your work. Long may you continue.
Tony! What’s with all the uploads!? You leave us for like 3 years, and then now you’re all consistent?! I love it!
Thanks to you, the 20 year long question I had about those that even an engineering degree didn't answer was answered at last! And what a smart & simple design! (although I completely forgot about them during grad)
Thanks!
When I was a kid my dad would go to business meetings and bring back all the free stuff they gave you and give it to me and my brothers. I HAD THIS CALCULATOR!!! I distinctly remember that calculator! So funny to be reminded of that haha Great video!!!
I had this calculator/calendar back in the day! I totally loved it's design and it's alarm tunes! ☺️
Thanks for putting a damper on my day Tony! 😃👍🏻👊🏻