1. Home
  2. ⚙ Mechanical Engineering
  3. acoustic kinetic art project - could use advice

acoustic kinetic art project - could use advice

Hi everyone!

I am not myself a mechanical engineer. I'm trying to create a wind- driven kinetic sculpture that is basically a big music box. Nothing profoundly complex about it. I was hoping to get some advice if possible. If I'm posting in the wrong place, let me know.

I've been looking into it and understand that I could probably create a windmill attached to a hub and use bearings, keyed shafting and keystock, some gears and perhaps a flex joint or universal joint to transfer the torque from the fan to a drum upon which would be mounted some clapper type things to strike some chimes.

I'm having a bit of trouble with the following issues

1) How to get the shafting, hubs, gears, and bearings affordably. I don't need precisely machined parts, they just need to work together. If I could scrounge the parts from some piece of junk, I imagine that would add to the 'art cred' of my project. On the other hand, scrounging generally results on incompatible or inappropriate parts. Suggestions welcome about how to acquire this sort of gear cheaply.

2) How do I get my windmill to rotate? I've seen huge windmills here in Cali at various wind farms, but I'm not privy to the inner workings. If any could suggest a proper shaft/bearing/gear layout to enable my windmill to rotate to meet the wind like a weather vane, I would be profoundly grateful.

3) Clappers -- what to use? At the moment, I've cut some EMT electrical conduit as chimes and they sound quite nice. I'm hoping to mount them in precise placement near my rotating drum so that I might mount some simple clappers in the drum to strike them in the appropriate sequence and combination to make a song -- like a music box! I'm having trouble picturing what form these clappers might take. As you can imagine, the chimes are not particularly mobile and anything too rigid wouldn't serve well as a clapper. I'm thinking it needs to be flexible and welcome suggestions.

Any tips are welcome!

Reply to
sneakyimp
Loading thread data ...

Except for the music...

formatting link

I'm just sorry that most of the responders left due to the high spam content.

Could just use a shape to achieve "vortex shedding", then use springs and hinges. No need for full rotation that way...

Hinges or rope, linear motion, rather than fully circular. You could review the thousands of DIY wind turbine designs, to see what they recommend.

How about just let the wind pull the mechanism "downwind", like weather vanes do? The axle bearings of cars are low friction, and good for toting a load.

There are a number of wind-only stationary arrangements of pipes. Pretty boring and uninteresting music.

formatting link

A music box has "sheet" music, and something to interpret it into hammer strikes, or "bowing" of the musical elements. If you are looking for *music*, you'll need this too. You might review the "Animusic" videos on youtube for some ideas for mechanisms.

David A. Smith

Reply to
dlzc

I'm considering a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT):

formatting link
Unfortunately, they apparently require higher wind speeds to operate.

The question wasn't so much about which forces to harness to make it turn, but rather what do the gear and bearing arrangements look like? As you can probably imagine, transferring torque from a rotating windmill might require some pretty particular placement of the gears and bearings to ensure that gears are coupled at all times.

I had seen that sculpture and I truly love it, but that's not what I'm after here. Think Rube Goldberg.

Thanks for the tip. I'm pretty sure I have the music angle worked out

-- which notes and how the are timed, etc. I'll check out the animusic vids.

Reply to
sneakyimp

formatting link

Like the drive shaft and half the rear axle of a car?

Unless you generate electricity or compressed fluid, and just "commutate" that at the pivot.

You might be able to just drive a speaker (computer), and let sympathetic vibrations amplify the tones into the various pipes. This would require playing slowly enough that energy can be stored into the various pipes...

David A. Smith

Reply to
dlzc

I've seen that. Been looking into some DIY approaches. Seems pretty simple.

A car's drive shaft is far too heavy for this application I think. I would imagine that it would take a pretty large windmill or a pretty stiff breeze to get something that heavy to move. Additionally, I don't think a simple right-angle joining of miter gears solves the problem of a swiveling windmill. I'm still having trouble picturing what the actual bearings and gear placement might look like.

Not sure what you mean? Could you elaborate?

Not sure what you mean here?

Reply to
sneakyimp

Dear sneakyimp:

On Jul 28, 6:42=A0pm, sneakyimp wrote: ...

Generate DC on the axis the windmill rotates around, and send the power through elements designed for the purpose of passing power through a rotating joint:

formatting link
If you drove a compressor directly, you could send compressed air through the housing of the "car's rear axle", and bleed it off in the rigid structure to do the work.

However you want to accomplish your task, you do not have to "turn right angles" with the power transmitting mechanical rotating parts. Then you are just left with engineering up bearings.

Release all the hammers on a piano. Sing a note loudly. You'll find that the strings of a piano that are near that frequency will start "echoing" the note, you can feel them vibrating. Same could occur with your pipes...

David A. Smith

Reply to
dlzc

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.