In my watch shop I have repaired many of the auto-winding watch mechanisms. They are very robust and what causes the most failures is bearing contamination with dirt and old sticky lubrication. Once cleaned, they will auto-wind the mainspring for another 50 years!
@@fredcarson2791 And yes, many, many people are still using these self-winding watches that appear to run forever once cleaned and lubricated properly!
@@philspencelayh5464 no that doesn't sound like a good idea :D but maybe for like, coastal tide generators or walking-motion generators, something like that.
In the 70s my dad gave me his old Seiko automatic he wore in the desert but stopped working. As a kid with nothing to lose I opened it up with a pair of 'Mole' grips and amazed to see the swinging weight, which had fallen off. The watch still works! Thanks for showing me the trickery of its mechanism all these years later
The generating tiles are the equivalent of "mushy" ground which is harder to walk through. Smart people will want to detour around it, and it's really a clever way to make the simple people work harder. A backpack that bounces to generate power will make the wearer work harder and more tired. There's no free power to harness here.
It's effectively like putting a belt on an engine and driving additional hardware with it; in the power-"generating" case, it's an alternator. It doesn't accomplish this by leeching excess energy off the engine, it does so by putting additional load *on* the engine. Like you say, this stuff is a way to sap work/life from saps.
There is some free energy to harness, but it's really small. People wearing shoes probably have some padding, the padding is already wasting some energy. If instead of wasting it as heat it was directed to energy generation, that would provide the same padding effect with energy as a byproduct. It's not going to be very much, but small electronic devices don't use very much. For use cases involving a lot of walking (e.g. hiking), a tiny amount of power harvested all day could be usable.
@@TheJohnreeves Regardless, it ignores the larger issue. Wasting time trying to scoop up bits and scraps of energy from the fringes instead of diverting that intellectual effort toward novel energy generation technologies and improving efficiencies of existing technologies, like reducing transmission losses etc. Penny wise and pound foolish.
@@joevideowatcher Nuclear power was that decades ago, the new thorium tractors run on an element that is as common as lead and are incredibly safe and basically meltdown proof. They don't actually want to solve energy because it would remove a reason to infringe on rights.
How about springs in soles of shoes that compress when you step on them and spring you up when you take a step. However, all the weight in the shoe would suck.
I really hope you pursue this! I am a Thru-hiker and have walked about 10,000 miles and keeping electronics charged on trail is always something we struggle with. In more open places you can use solar, but on a lot of trails with tree cover it just isn't viable. My friends and I definitely have thought about something to take advantage of the energy we use walking, but haven't seen anything like this. Given that we tend to walk around 8-10 hours a day average, this really could be viable for us. One thing to be aware of is that the energy to lift something from your foot (Like shoes) is equivalent to carrying about 5 times that on your back. So if you have a pair of shoes that weight 1 lb vs a pair that weight 2 , you will be expending about 5 lbs extra in energy of work. The military did some studies on this years ago. I mention this because if what you spend in energy over say a 5 day stretch lifting a heavy electric generator system on your shoes is more than say carrying and extra 3/4 lb battery bank, it wouldn't be much use, for us at least. Though, if you live in a city and want a bit extra exercise it could be worth it. Anyhow, been watching for a while and love your channel ! Keep up the good work!
Maybe take this very slow energy and use it to compress some air or something, and then run a turbine with a generator? Or use it to pump water to a higher level, then let it flow down and let it spin a turbine with a generator and get it back in the form of electricity? I dunno. This very slow and intermittent rotational energy would need to be converted into something more consistent to get electrical power back out. Or a gravity pulley like other have said, hook up said pulley to a generator once enough height has been built into the energy battery to begin harvesting.
I wonder how that auto-generating backpack design would affect one's gait. If you get it swinging back and forth opposite from your gate, would the inertia in the pack push against the natural sway in your gait? And would that make it easier or more difficult to walk over time? Interesting.
@@mortanicus5871 I am sure it wouldn't be good for balance. Too many times your pack moves side to side and at angles when you bend and twist while hiking. Matching in a straight line maybe. But I wouldn't trust it going over rocks, scree, snow, roots, or mud.
That's an interesting observation. The human body is extremely efficient in energy generation & usage. If it goes into charging devices the energy gain may not be worth the extra effort expended into generating it.
@@rtos Exactly. Not all that much energy is actually going to waste, so any energy being sapped to generate electricity you will definitely notice. Same with like the in-floor generation concepts, what you end up doing is just making the floor kinda squishy and harder to walk on.
Many years ago I got myself interested in just how such winding mechanisms work. Probably spent the better part of a week at the library (not that doing so was wholely unheard-of for me) but it's a new understanding to see a large model demonstrated. Rob, thank you!
@@toml.8210 a glass back with the winding mechanism and main spring visible would be interesting. Bonus points if the glass were etched with graduations for about how long it will run with the currently stored energy!
@@matthewellisor5835 Exhibition back self winding watches are pretty common now. Even Rolex adopted this just this year. The unfortunate problem with this is the self winding mechanism is nearly concentric centered, so even when skeletonized, the pendulum weight makes seeing the operation impossible. I have two watches like this, and I've poured over them to try and divine how this mechanism works, but with this video, it's obvious now. The only not obvious part is getting the driven wheel (attached to the mainspring) nearly concentric with the pendulum wheel, but I have a pretty clear idea of how they do this in my mind's eye. There are any number of watch servicing videos on RUclips for reference, but this large model truly pulls back the covers on how it really works.
That's such an elegant mechanism. Thank you for making us aware of it. An eccentric weight, winding a clock spring that drives an electrical generator is an obvious task for this mechanism.
Magic trick reveal: If you harvest some energy from people walking, it means that people will have a harder time walking on such surface. The energy required for a watch is very small, so, the restriction on the wearer's movement is imperceptible . The more energy you want to harvest, the more restriction/effort you have to overcome.
@@TheFlwildman Yep. But a lot of people seem to forget that basic principle and prefer to believe in magic. They are so excited that the 'science' is about to make miracles.
I think my favorite thing about this channel, other than the consistently fascinating and informative content, is that RMS always delivers exactly what is promised in the title. It's never clickbait, or pseudo scientific rubbish trying to sell some VPN or something. If the title promises you a Magic Lever... well, here you go. One magic lever and the files for you to make your own right now. All channels should be held to such a high standard. Thanks for this.
Yeah if only offering solid content that isn't hyperbolic garbage repackaged for mass consumption made you popular with the algorithm. Sadly that's not what makes money outside of some rare exceptions. Someone clipping this for shorts content with the title, "FREE ENERGY??!" and obnoxious captions in the center of the screen that are apparently the new formula to copy, would probably get 10X the views.
@JJFX- I don't think that's what the author is looking for. I don't see why spoil his good work. And MK-lk7nc I think wanted to emphasise how this kind of content REALLY exceptional is... With links to the files to build it. Who have fans should share it ten times.
I've found the climbing device the "GRIGRI" to be a very interesting mechanism. It's a very important safety device, so it must not fail, but it's also a piece of climbing gear so it'll get banged up against rocks, wet, muddy, has to accommodate ropes of all different sizes, etc.. It's incredibly simple, though, but it just doesn't fail except in exceptional circumstances.
Now that is what a great YT video is. From the content to the introduction, presentation to editing… Subject perfectly covered under 5 mins with a hands on demo.
Older watches don't have the lever or a clutch, so it only winds when the rotor moves in the one direction, and the mainspring may break. Seiko fixed that.
There's also a high gear ratio between the auto winder and the mainspring, that allows this really tiny weight, to apply torque to the mainspring and then there's a clutch that prevents the auto wind mechanism to snap the spring.
Way back in the late 1960s I saw an article describing a similar ratchet mechanism hooked up to a rope tied toward the top of a tall tree. As the tree swayed in the wind it produced some very high tensions and some fairly long strokes. If you matched such a "tree and ratchet" mechanism with a heavy weight driven generator (on the ground next to the tree) you might get some usable power. If you use three or four top ropes (every 120 or 90 degrees) you can get a pull on the ratchet no matter what direction the tree is blown in. One small correction: A LOT of life uses rotary motion instead of reciprocating motion -- but we don't normally see it because the life is single celled. You know all those microscopic movies of bacteria with propulsive flagella waving snake-like behind? They aren't actually flailing, they are actually rotating corkscrews and just appear to be flailing because they rotate. The base of each screw has a tiny chemical/electric "motor" twirling it about. Ain't life AMAZING?! And your videos are great too! Thanks?
@@philip5940 Ha! Neat idea, I would not have thought of that, but yes, trees grow new fibers where they need it for support. The ropes will act as shock absorbers and smooth out the highest forces, won't they? Just my gut feeling? Probably not enough to matter, but I might be wrong.
@@thetruenolan6655 however , I like that someone has actually done it . I gave thought to it in early eighties , we discussed pros n cons and that was all . At that time the Mother Earth magazine was always having articles for alternative+ energy projects. In popular science magazine it was labelled alternate~ energy projects and in same language too from same country.
Back in the '70s I came up with a similar mechanical energy storage design to store short milder kicks to load a spring for a motorcycle kick starter. The Yamaha RT360 single cylinder 2 stroke had a reputation for delivering injuries if it wasn't kicked with kung fu precision. Shame I didn't have the resources to build it. But I was only in high school at the time.
@philip5940 Decompression, yes. But it stayed plugged with carbon. So, mostly useless. Timing change would have been nice. Had it fire up in reverse once! 2 stroke. Luckily, the timing was off running that direction, so not as much power.
When I first got interested in automatic watches I learned of this. Making complicated stuff is very simple. Making simple stuff is complicated. Brilliant!
it's an incredible science with leading-edge proprietary materials, alloys, coatings, and manufacturing techniques. Now that "we" are masters of the nano-scale atoms; it is just, off-the-hook, insane! The thinking, time, artistry, and materials and technology that go into a modern day -million dollar watch - is astoundingly jaw-dropping and could make any head spin.
Thank you for an interesting video, as always your videos are interesting, well presented and informative. Thinking about this, the energy involved in say, walking is not wasted by the body, it is mainly stored in the elasticity of tendons etc. and it is utilised in the next step taken. To "harvest" it will make walking tiresome due to the imbalance created in the body's perfect walking mechanism, but I suppose siphoning off just a watt or two to charge a 'phone wouldn't make too much difference. After all, the self winding watch never made anyone's arm ache...
A simple stroke of genius. I made a crude ratchet-pawl mechanism for my weaving loom using a steel washer, hacksaw and heavy guage wire. It was expensive to buy the mechanism, so a little autocad magic and elbow grease, it cost pennies and it's working just fine. However, a 3D printer/mould would have been perfect. Again, the goal was improvising on a low budget. Now I'm wondering if I can construct this without the need for a milling machine, 3D printer or a mould. Ok you've inspired me. Great video!
Another system Seiko has is their KINETIC drive system (I have it in my 20+ yo Seiko watch) where you basically "shake" (or walk) to charge the internal battery. Fascinating stuff to say the least
Would be great to use that to lift the weight of a gravety generator. Hook it up to a water wheel or wind mill...use 2 ...one weight comes down for constant power to the generator, while the mechanism on the wind mill pulls up the second for the next cycle. Weight comes to the bottom limit, hits a lever and switches the power to the top weight.
What is the point of the gravity in this setup, why not hook the generator directly to the wheel (like we actually do now)? I suppose it has a little bit of built in storage capacity but not very much, and if you want that you can get it other ways that don't require the convoluted double weights and this magic lever.
@@TheJohnreeves it's just a battery, they are very useful for "green" energy sources. See for example a wind turbine, it could spend some of the excess power in lifting a gravity battery when there's wind and it could release that stored energy from the gravity battery when there's no wind. Fun project as a hobby for skilled people that know how to build stuff but actually pointless for any country to use now that nuclear power exists, nuclear is just much better and safer than anything else in every capacity at the moment
My first idea for getting energy out of walking would be some sort of liquid squirting through a turbine of sort. I mean, there would be a soft chamber with one way valves in built in the bottom of the shoe, and when it gets squished, it pumps a liquid through thin tubes in to a turbine..
My favorite is the Jaeger LeCoultre mechanism that uses a bellows to wind the spring as the bellows moves in and out with changes in the ambient temperature.
Smash that LIKE! Robert is doing yeoman's work with this channel--getting people interested in electromechanical devices. Thinking "outside the box" is a learned skill, and this channel is fantastic training for that. Thank you sir!
It’s dead reliable too! My SNK809 with the 7s26 automatic movement has the magic lever system and is 5 years old. This movement is rated at about 10 to 15 years of continuous wear between needed maintenance. Seiko also has a Kinetic movement that uses a automatic rotor and the movement charges a capacitor for quick energy recovery and powerful discharge to power a quartz movement.
What a fascinating device indeed! One of those 'simple' notions that illustrates how we can manipulate shapes and interfaces to achieve a useful outcome.
I'm not sure why, but watching this video made me think about the 7 natural steps law for walking with a cup of coffee (think it's universal for most liquids) when we walk with a liquid filled cup we actually have to adjust the way we walk else it will spill around the 7th step due to the resonance of our walk going through the liquid, interesting mechanism in the video though, I use to have a watch that was powered like that
I usually skip 3D printing videos because I don't have and can not afford a 3D printer, but damn this video was super interesting. I always wondered how self winding watches worked!
usually just demonstrate mechanisms mate and they can be made in quite a few ways - just use the 3d printer as a tool i think most of my 3d printing vids have very little to do with 3d printing lol
I suspect a lot of these energy harvesting devices would make the humans actuating them more tired, but if they only extracted a small insignificant amount per human and there are a lot of humans, then they wouldn't be so noticeable.
I agree, this would effectively take energy that would be normally fully transferred in a footstep causing people to take more steps and walk faster and/or harder to make up for the deficit in their movement. This would mean people would be more tired walking from place to place, and thus consume more calories resulting in no real energy gain. If we are also to consider thermal losses through increased respiration and perspiration through the extra exertion, then this would actually result in a net loss of "useful energy" from the system since more would turn into heat energy.
Correct. Energy conservation is the barrier as usual. All these devices cannot generate "Free" electricity/power - the energy has tom come from somewhere!
going from nothing to winding a watch spring, and then generating meaningful energy are giant leaps remember that no one person inventions have occurred for many many years, need to collaborate and build together these days.
Robert. Thankyou for the upload, that's a great idea! I'd like to see you cover the LaMSa mechanism used by the mantis shrimp. It's fascinating and quite difficult to grasp the concept. I think you or Luke could make a brilliant job of simplifying and possibly recreating the design that nature apparently favours. Much respect for what you do here on TnT, RB
I have a Seiko with the magic lever! They also have a clutch to stop the winding when the mainspring is wound. I just don't hear any clicking, so there must be some more than just the three simple parts?
This will wind a spring well, but surely Seiko's 'Kenetic' system for charging quartz watches would be more applicable, if it scales. Seems to involve the watch weight passing over at least two wire coils.
Phew. I'm so glad you heard me shouting, turn it the other way. 😊 Can't wait to see what you come up with. I can imagine something attached to someone's hip area and operated by a pull cord attached front and back to their leg.
Hypnotic. And I'll be sure to binge on your other videos for a dive into energy scavenging. Interesting topic and I look forward to hearing more on it.
what a clever device, the simplest things are the best, and things that do something without moving are the best, like seat belt positioning mounts that always return the seatbelt to where its meant to be without any moving parts,
Very nice demonstration as usual. Just a little remark: in the universe, the circular movement is quite frequent, isn't it ? Quite often the "linear" movement is just a quanta of a "circular" one. Transforming the linear in circular is a kind f normalisation.
Most delightful to watch, thank you. I always wondered how this mechanism (self winding) works. I had a beautiful Rotary watch with self winding back in the seventies but unfortunately it got swiped.
That's cool, looks like it's modelled on a pendulum clock escapement mechanism which first showed up in the 13th century, but put to a slightly different use. Very creative.
Great video! I love when you can make a model and observe the mechanism as you manipulate it with your hands. It takes a real world class instructor to do that instead of being lame and just explaining things by math formulas or reading verbatim a paragraph from a boring book.
I would place this lever on the side (not at the front) of each leg where the quadriceps and upper shins meet interfacing over the side of the knee cap. It turns out the Q angle (Quadriceps) of adult ranges between 18 degrees to 90 degrees when knee is at it's most extension and flexion. You can calculate how many tooth gets rotated during the movement and multiply that by two, as you have one on each leg, then you can estimate the output wattage from there. Love your outward thinking ideas. God bless
depending on the incline, wether you walk up or down it, you really wouldn't feel any use of energy at all. If anything, it would soften the blow to the knees, like if you're walking down a hill.
The simplest application I can think of would be to mount the thing in the middle of your lower back. Have small lines that would run from opposite sides of the drive-crank down to the back of your ankles\shoes. As you walk, the crank could shwish-swosh back and forth. Use that to spin the gear which could spin a small flywheel to generate power.
I love this concept, and its something that is also very human. If you take a cylinder (ex. drink can) and apply force on one side with your thumb like you are grabbing it. It will rotate forward, and now with your pointer finger apply force coming back and the item will so the same motion. I love the idea of capturing the energy of a step, when you really think about how much force we put down per step for a 180lb person x 5,000 steps is a lot of energy that we burn, but could be translated into something more.
More than two centuries ago there was some floor clocks that worked on an atmospheric pressure fluctuations. They could work without human support for decades! Imagine scaling this thing to a huge size that could generate pretty big amount of energy, for free.
Those sidewalks... Might be fun for a few meters but if everywhere it will be exhausting to walk. Like walking uphill or in sand. Because the energy you harvest is not excess heat - it's extra cm that pedestrians need to lift their feet.
ingenious mechanism - legendary company - THE first automatic chronometer in space. The sagas of the battles, between the traditional Swiss - and upstart Japanese watch industries is a ballad in the war of the brave and the bold ....A truly epic stand-out tale of survival - in the entire history of Horology! It will make you laugh - it will make you cry. Casio has a fascinating history as well!
Just think, instead of putting spikes down on the sidewalks so that the homeless can't sleep there, they could just put these generating pads down so that every time they turn over when they sleep, the people looking down on them from the skyscrapers can charge their vapes! How exciting!
The energy that goes into walking is used in walking. If you attach a device to capture walking energy, the operator will notice that it's more effort to walk using the device.
I think sitting on office chairs could be used too. Let them spring back up when we stand up. Whole body of weight on it. Just an idea. Thanks for sharing :)
Anyone who's cycled a bike with a dynamo will understand that adding energy generation to your own movement adds additional effort. Sometimes it's worthwhile, but worth bearing in mind it's not free
Remember energy and matter can not be created or destroyed. Energy comes from somewhere, and in this case from your body. It will make you tired faster but it might be worth it if it keeps the scout drone operational. (Sidewalks you see early in the clip, good for people that will avoid them like they do gyms. Also probably feel sort of like you're walking on sand, full stride/energy input but only half the progress)
Back in the mid-60's my dad purchased a Seiko self-winding watch. I was fascinated by it. Soon after that I received a Helbros self-winder for a birthday present. I think he was tired of me playing with his Seiko.
I'm a hiker. And usually use a solar panel to keep my electronics charged. If this is going anywhere near a foot it has to be 100% comfortable and not rub anywhere. I can do 16+ (sometimes 20+) miles in a day. Even the slightest problem with your feet can kill that.
If you walk on a pad that generates power from your steps that mechanism is increasing the difficulty of your walking. You're not generating power your stealing it.
I think it's interesting: all of our joints move in a circular motion, yet our body uses that to create linear motion. Like throwing a ball or a punch....or any movement like that (swinging a golf club or baseball bat)... the energy comes from the rotation of the body, but it's used, in the end, to create linear force: a straight throw, pass or punch, a straight golf shot (or one with a more controlled flight), a straight baseball hit. ....if you throw a ball and just let go, it goes right into the ground. of course...its following the circular motion of your arm. Thus, we let your fingers drag on the ball, inducing backspin. That negates the circular motion of our body (among other things) and we get a longer, more straight throw (that's why your coach keeps telling you to 'follow through' when throwing a ball or shooting a basketball, kids 👍). Just...something I always thought was curious about humans.
The amazing result one gets by a position of offset and angle of intervention . What seems impossible and highly unlikely becomes plausible and eventually fact by interaction caused by the principle of cause and effect .
I've thought about stuff like this since I was an A Level student in the 1970s. I thought about electric cars, regenerative braking etc and have been thinking about it all ever since. The idea of tapping energy off the movement of our body interests me, principally because I wonder (but can't be sure) whether our bodies are in fact more efficient machines than anything we have created. If that is the case, and (for example) our bodies are made to work harder by walking on a floor that absorbs our working energy by yielding and itself generating energy, and if our bodies then require more calorie input because they are doing more work, and bearing in mind the energy cost of manufacturing, installing and maintaining these energy absorbing floors, then what is the real advantage they offer (if any) in energy savings. Thinking even more widely, what are all these humans doing walking around in places where the footfall is sufficient to justify investment in energy generating pavements. For example, is it to visit shopping centres where they buy a lot of staff that itself takes energy to make and which is not strictly essential? Is it do go to workplaces where they earn employment doing work that could just as easily have been done from where they live, and without co2 generating commutes. The more you think about this, the more there is to think about, and I start to realise that whilst some of the novel energy generating technologies may be fascinating to learn about, they may be a distraction from thinking deeply about the nature of how we live and how perhaps we might live differently in ways that are still meaningful and fulfilling but that make better use of that most efficient of machines - our bodies, and our minds - to build that planet saving sustainable future we all seek.
If you want to generate electricity from walking, put piezoelectric crystals under the ball and heel, connect to a suitable voltage regulator. Mechanisms will break and jam under such complex motion but solid state devices will just keep working.
In my watch shop I have repaired many of the auto-winding watch mechanisms. They are very robust and what causes the most failures is bearing contamination with dirt and old sticky lubrication. Once cleaned, they will auto-wind the mainspring for another 50 years!
Forensic1man. Yes, I remember those self-winding watches.
@@fredcarson2791 And yes, many, many people are still using these self-winding watches that appear to run forever once cleaned and lubricated properly!
Perhaps this concept could be fused with the magnetic gears idea to make a version where the parts never touch and still function?
@@MK-lk7nc magnets in a mechanical watch?
@@philspencelayh5464 no that doesn't sound like a good idea :D but maybe for like, coastal tide generators or walking-motion generators, something like that.
In the 70s my dad gave me his old Seiko automatic he wore in the desert but stopped working. As a kid with nothing to lose I opened it up with a pair of 'Mole' grips and amazed to see the swinging weight, which had fallen off. The watch still works! Thanks for showing me the trickery of its mechanism all these years later
thats really cool
I had one when I was a teenager.
The generating tiles are the equivalent of "mushy" ground which is harder to walk through. Smart people will want to detour around it, and it's really a clever way to make the simple people work harder. A backpack that bounces to generate power will make the wearer work harder and more tired. There's no free power to harness here.
It's effectively like putting a belt on an engine and driving additional hardware with it; in the power-"generating" case, it's an alternator. It doesn't accomplish this by leeching excess energy off the engine, it does so by putting additional load *on* the engine. Like you say, this stuff is a way to sap work/life from saps.
There is some free energy to harness, but it's really small. People wearing shoes probably have some padding, the padding is already wasting some energy. If instead of wasting it as heat it was directed to energy generation, that would provide the same padding effect with energy as a byproduct.
It's not going to be very much, but small electronic devices don't use very much. For use cases involving a lot of walking (e.g. hiking), a tiny amount of power harvested all day could be usable.
@@TheJohnreeves Regardless, it ignores the larger issue. Wasting time trying to scoop up bits and scraps of energy from the fringes instead of diverting that intellectual effort toward novel energy generation technologies and improving efficiencies of existing technologies, like reducing transmission losses etc.
Penny wise and pound foolish.
@@joevideowatcher Nuclear power was that decades ago, the new thorium tractors run on an element that is as common as lead and are incredibly safe and basically meltdown proof. They don't actually want to solve energy because it would remove a reason to infringe on rights.
How about springs in soles of shoes that compress when you step on them and spring you up when you take a step. However, all the weight in the shoe would suck.
I really hope you pursue this! I am a Thru-hiker and have walked about 10,000 miles and keeping electronics charged on trail is always something we struggle with. In more open places you can use solar, but on a lot of trails with tree cover it just isn't viable. My friends and I definitely have thought about something to take advantage of the energy we use walking, but haven't seen anything like this. Given that we tend to walk around 8-10 hours a day average, this really could be viable for us.
One thing to be aware of is that the energy to lift something from your foot (Like shoes) is equivalent to carrying about 5 times that on your back. So if you have a pair of shoes that weight 1 lb vs a pair that weight 2 , you will be expending about 5 lbs extra in energy of work. The military did some studies on this years ago.
I mention this because if what you spend in energy over say a 5 day stretch lifting a heavy electric generator system on your shoes is more than say carrying and extra 3/4 lb battery bank, it wouldn't be much use, for us at least. Though, if you live in a city and want a bit extra exercise it could be worth it.
Anyhow, been watching for a while and love your channel ! Keep up the good work!
Maybe take this very slow energy and use it to compress some air or something, and then run a turbine with a generator? Or use it to pump water to a higher level, then let it flow down and let it spin a turbine with a generator and get it back in the form of electricity? I dunno. This very slow and intermittent rotational energy would need to be converted into something more consistent to get electrical power back out. Or a gravity pulley like other have said, hook up said pulley to a generator once enough height has been built into the energy battery to begin harvesting.
I wonder how that auto-generating backpack design would affect one's gait. If you get it swinging back and forth opposite from your gate, would the inertia in the pack push against the natural sway in your gait? And would that make it easier or more difficult to walk over time? Interesting.
@@mortanicus5871 I am sure it wouldn't be good for balance. Too many times your pack moves side to side and at angles when you bend and twist while hiking. Matching in a straight line maybe. But I wouldn't trust it going over rocks, scree, snow, roots, or mud.
That's an interesting observation. The human body is extremely efficient in energy generation & usage. If it goes into charging devices the energy gain may not be worth the extra effort expended into generating it.
@@rtos Exactly. Not all that much energy is actually going to waste, so any energy being sapped to generate electricity you will definitely notice. Same with like the in-floor generation concepts, what you end up doing is just making the floor kinda squishy and harder to walk on.
Many years ago I got myself interested in just how such winding mechanisms work. Probably spent the better part of a week at the library (not that doing so was wholely unheard-of for me) but it's a new understanding to see a large model demonstrated.
Rob, thank you!
My watch (a Seiko 5) has a glass back, so you can see the balance wheel, but you can't see the magic lever.
@@toml.8210 a glass back with the winding mechanism and main spring visible would be interesting. Bonus points if the glass were etched with graduations for about how long it will run with the currently stored energy!
@@toml.8210 I'm wearing one right now. Great watch!
@@matthewellisor5835 Exhibition back self winding watches are pretty common now. Even Rolex adopted this just this year. The unfortunate problem with this is the self winding mechanism is nearly concentric centered, so even when skeletonized, the pendulum weight makes seeing the operation impossible. I have two watches like this, and I've poured over them to try and divine how this mechanism works, but with this video, it's obvious now. The only not obvious part is getting the driven wheel (attached to the mainspring) nearly concentric with the pendulum wheel, but I have a pretty clear idea of how they do this in my mind's eye. There are any number of watch servicing videos on RUclips for reference, but this large model truly pulls back the covers on how it really works.
Once again Rob shows us machines that can help us today don't necessarily need to have transistors and electricity to be super useful. Thanks Rob
cheers mate
Of course, if this Magic Lever is to charge a lithium battery in a device, transistors will be necessary
@@sottx8268mechanical potential energy> lithium
Or room-temperature superconductors!
Exactly how does this machine actually help us at all? Besides that, If not for transistors, your cell phone wouldn’t exist.
That's such an elegant mechanism. Thank you for making us aware of it. An eccentric weight, winding a clock spring that drives an electrical generator is an obvious task for this mechanism.
What an amazing GENIUS idea that thing is!! So simple but not so simple. There are some clever chaps about.
Magic trick reveal:
If you harvest some energy from people walking, it means that people will have a harder time walking on such surface.
The energy required for a watch is very small, so, the restriction on the wearer's movement is imperceptible .
The more energy you want to harvest, the more restriction/effort you have to overcome.
conservation of energy, interesting concept
@@TheFlwildman Yep. But a lot of people seem to forget that basic principle and prefer to believe in magic. They are so excited that the 'science' is about to make miracles.
I think my favorite thing about this channel, other than the consistently fascinating and informative content, is that RMS always delivers exactly what is promised in the title. It's never clickbait, or pseudo scientific rubbish trying to sell some VPN or something. If the title promises you a Magic Lever... well, here you go. One magic lever and the files for you to make your own right now. All channels should be held to such a high standard. Thanks for this.
Yeah if only offering solid content that isn't hyperbolic garbage repackaged for mass consumption made you popular with the algorithm. Sadly that's not what makes money outside of some rare exceptions. Someone clipping this for shorts content with the title, "FREE ENERGY??!" and obnoxious captions in the center of the screen that are apparently the new formula to copy, would probably get 10X the views.
Yep
@JJFX- I don't think that's what the author is looking for. I don't see why spoil his good work. And MK-lk7nc I think wanted to emphasise how this kind of content REALLY exceptional is... With links to the files to build it. Who have fans should share it ten times.
@@IpTv-xt2gc I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I think he's doing exceptional work.
I've found the climbing device the "GRIGRI" to be a very interesting mechanism. It's a very important safety device, so it must not fail, but it's also a piece of climbing gear so it'll get banged up against rocks, wet, muddy, has to accommodate ropes of all different sizes, etc.. It's incredibly simple, though, but it just doesn't fail except in exceptional circumstances.
I prefer the grillon myself
Fascinating. I've got several automatic winding watches, but I never understood exactly how they worked. Thank you for the explanation.
This is a clock escapement only for storing energy rather than controlled release. Think of an escapement in reverse. Ingenious! Thanks Rob.
Now that is what a great YT video is. From the content to the introduction, presentation to editing… Subject perfectly covered under 5 mins with a hands on demo.
Thank you, I always wondered how the auto-winding watch worked. I learn so much from your videos!!!!
Older watches don't have the lever or a clutch, so it only winds when the rotor moves in the one direction, and the mainspring may break. Seiko fixed that.
There's also a high gear ratio between the auto winder and the mainspring, that allows this really tiny weight, to apply torque to the mainspring and then there's a clutch that prevents the auto wind mechanism to snap the spring.
Way back in the late 1960s I saw an article describing a similar ratchet mechanism hooked up to a rope tied toward the top of a tall tree. As the tree swayed in the wind it produced some very high tensions and some fairly long strokes. If you matched such a "tree and ratchet" mechanism with a heavy weight driven generator (on the ground next to the tree) you might get some usable power. If you use three or four top ropes (every 120 or 90 degrees) you can get a pull on the ratchet no matter what direction the tree is blown in.
One small correction: A LOT of life uses rotary motion instead of reciprocating motion -- but we don't normally see it because the life is single celled. You know all those microscopic movies of bacteria with propulsive flagella waving snake-like behind? They aren't actually flailing, they are actually rotating corkscrews and just appear to be flailing because they rotate. The base of each screw has a tiny chemical/electric "motor" twirling it about.
Ain't life AMAZING?! And your videos are great too! Thanks?
Interestingly , that might weaken the he tree's structural strength over time .
@@philip5940 Ha! Neat idea, I would not have thought of that, but yes, trees grow new fibers where they need it for support. The ropes will act as shock absorbers and smooth out the highest forces, won't they? Just my gut feeling? Probably not enough to matter, but I might be wrong.
@@thetruenolan6655 however , I like that someone has actually done it . I gave thought to it in early eighties , we discussed pros n cons and that was all . At that time the Mother Earth magazine was always having articles for alternative+ energy projects. In popular science magazine it was labelled alternate~ energy projects and in same language too from same country.
Back in the '70s I came up with a similar mechanical energy storage design to store short milder kicks to load a spring for a motorcycle kick starter. The Yamaha RT360 single cylinder 2 stroke had a reputation for delivering injuries if it wasn't kicked with kung fu precision. Shame I didn't have the resources to build it. But I was only in high school at the time.
The idea is still valid, ratchet+spring+release = kickstart, this should also work for lawnmowers chainsaws outboard engines turboprops...
@@disklamerthey used to have that. I guess the spring wasn't reliable.
Sounds like Stihl Ergostart
Was there a decompression valve and a means to retard the timing slightly?
@philip5940
Decompression, yes. But it stayed plugged with carbon. So, mostly useless.
Timing change would have been nice. Had it fire up in reverse once! 2 stroke. Luckily, the timing was off running that direction, so not as much power.
This is mind-blowing for someone like me who doesn't know about watch mechanisms. Very cool how it always goes the same direction!
My new favorite channel so humble and informative, it’s a delight to see you just as excited as I am to see your inventions working 👍
Wow, thank you!
When I first got interested in automatic watches I learned of this.
Making complicated stuff is very simple.
Making simple stuff is complicated.
Brilliant!
'Someone' needs to invent a dog harness with some...
lol - for sure
Big dog ideas there
Nice idea, fit it to a dog's tail.
A dog phone charger 😊
Well I’ll be dog-gone!😅
It’s amazing how tough these are. When I service a seiko watch I’m always impressed with this very tiny parts and how much energy thy store.
it's an incredible science with leading-edge proprietary materials, alloys, coatings, and manufacturing techniques. Now that "we" are masters of the nano-scale atoms; it is just, off-the-hook, insane! The thinking, time, artistry, and materials and technology that go into a modern day -million dollar watch - is astoundingly jaw-dropping and could make any head spin.
Thank you for an interesting video, as always your videos are interesting, well presented and informative. Thinking about this, the energy involved in say, walking is not wasted by the body, it is mainly stored in the elasticity of tendons etc. and it is utilised in the next step taken. To "harvest" it will make walking tiresome due to the imbalance created in the body's perfect walking mechanism, but I suppose siphoning off just a watt or two to charge a 'phone wouldn't make too much difference. After all, the self winding watch never made anyone's arm ache...
A simple stroke of genius. I made a crude ratchet-pawl mechanism for my weaving loom using a steel washer, hacksaw and heavy guage wire. It was expensive to buy the mechanism, so a little autocad magic and elbow grease, it cost pennies and it's working just fine. However, a 3D printer/mould would have been perfect. Again, the goal was improvising on a low budget. Now I'm wondering if I can construct this without the need for a milling machine, 3D printer or a mould. Ok you've inspired me. Great video!
Love it. Mechanism and battery go into your shoe and when you sit down at the airport you plug your USB into your sole. Genius.
Another system Seiko has is their KINETIC drive system (I have it in my 20+ yo Seiko watch) where you basically "shake" (or walk) to charge the internal battery.
Fascinating stuff to say the least
My first big purchase in 1976 was a SEIKO watch.. thanks for explantion.FASCINATING
Would be great to use that to lift the weight of a gravety generator. Hook it up to a water wheel or wind mill...use 2 ...one weight comes down for constant power to the generator, while the mechanism on the wind mill pulls up the second for the next cycle. Weight comes to the bottom limit, hits a lever and switches the power to the top weight.
What is the point of the gravity in this setup, why not hook the generator directly to the wheel (like we actually do now)? I suppose it has a little bit of built in storage capacity but not very much, and if you want that you can get it other ways that don't require the convoluted double weights and this magic lever.
@@TheJohnreeves it's just a battery, they are very useful for "green" energy sources.
See for example a wind turbine, it could spend some of the excess power in lifting a gravity battery when there's wind and it could release that stored energy from the gravity battery when there's no wind.
Fun project as a hobby for skilled people that know how to build stuff but actually pointless for any country to use now that nuclear power exists, nuclear is just much better and safer than anything else in every capacity at the moment
My first idea for getting energy out of walking would be some sort of liquid squirting through a turbine of sort. I mean, there would be a soft chamber with one way valves in built in the bottom of the shoe, and when it gets squished, it pumps a liquid through thin tubes in to a turbine..
that would be much quieter than an cog type mechanism.
My favorite is the Jaeger LeCoultre mechanism that uses a bellows to wind the spring as the bellows moves in and out with changes in the ambient temperature.
Every bit of energy you generate from walking is added to the effort of walking.
Smash that LIKE! Robert is doing yeoman's work with this channel--getting people interested in electromechanical devices. Thinking "outside the box" is a learned skill, and this channel is fantastic training for that. Thank you sir!
You rock! cheers mate
It’s dead reliable too! My SNK809 with the 7s26 automatic movement has the magic lever system and is 5 years old. This movement is rated at about 10 to 15 years of continuous wear between needed maintenance. Seiko also has a Kinetic movement that uses a automatic rotor and the movement charges a capacitor for quick energy recovery and powerful discharge to power a quartz movement.
This looks looks like a great device for harvesting wave energy. Very interesting!
And tidal energy.
I actually thought the same thing, be it a buoy or an articulated paddle-type mechanism.
What a fascinating device indeed! One of those 'simple' notions that illustrates how we can manipulate shapes and interfaces to achieve a useful outcome.
🎩👍Good one Robert,
I never thought of that until you came up with it either
cheers mate
Brilliant ! Thanks for showing us this mechanism.
I'm not sure why, but watching this video made me think about the 7 natural steps law for walking with a cup of coffee (think it's universal for most liquids) when we walk with a liquid filled cup we actually have to adjust the way we walk else it will spill around the 7th step due to the resonance of our walk going through the liquid, interesting mechanism in the video though, I use to have a watch that was powered like that
First time I've seen you, I don't know how to describe it, but I like the way you present yourself and the concepts
I usually skip 3D printing videos because I don't have and can not afford a 3D printer, but damn this video was super interesting. I always wondered how self winding watches worked!
usually just demonstrate mechanisms mate and they can be made in quite a few ways - just use the 3d printer as a tool i think most of my 3d printing vids have very little to do with 3d printing lol
Meet people that have a 3D printer and you'll have access to one or several.
In the 70's I had a Timex watch that was a self winding and it worked like that. I really liked that watch and was really bummed when it died.
It must have taken more than a licking.😂
Mechanical engineering has so much useful wisdom to teach us.
I suspect a lot of these energy harvesting devices would make the humans actuating them more tired, but if they only extracted a small insignificant amount per human and there are a lot of humans, then they wouldn't be so noticeable.
I agree, this would effectively take energy that would be normally fully transferred in a footstep causing people to take more steps and walk faster and/or harder to make up for the deficit in their movement. This would mean people would be more tired walking from place to place, and thus consume more calories resulting in no real energy gain. If we are also to consider thermal losses through increased respiration and perspiration through the extra exertion, then this would actually result in a net loss of "useful energy" from the system since more would turn into heat energy.
Correct. Energy conservation is the barrier as usual. All these devices cannot generate "Free" electricity/power - the energy has tom come from somewhere!
@@skylerhanson101the energy an automatic watch could take is the same as an equivalent mass in your arm
I have always been impressed with this mechanism. Even some swiss watches can’t wind in both directions
going from nothing to winding a watch spring, and then generating meaningful energy are giant leaps
remember that no one person inventions have occurred for many many years, need to collaborate and build together these days.
I saw this mechanism in a video I was watching where a guy was fixing a watch, I hadn’t seen it in any other watches before. Nice to see how it works!
Robert. Thankyou for the upload, that's a great idea!
I'd like to see you cover the LaMSa mechanism used by the mantis shrimp.
It's fascinating and quite difficult to grasp the concept.
I think you or Luke could make a brilliant job of simplifying and possibly recreating the design that nature apparently favours.
Much respect for what you do here on TnT,
RB
I have a Seiko with the magic lever! They also have a clutch to stop the winding when the mainspring is wound. I just don't hear any clicking, so there must be some more than just the three simple parts?
This would be nice to use in harvesting tidal energy, as it can capture movements from variable motions. Kudos Seiko😊
Genius! It goes the same direction no matter which way you rotate!!!
I've been wondering about this for almost forty years. Great explanation
We need more good, functional inventions like these, that are good for the environment and ourselves !!🤩
This will wind a spring well, but surely Seiko's 'Kenetic' system for charging quartz watches would be more applicable, if it scales. Seems to involve the watch weight passing over at least two wire coils.
Phew. I'm so glad you heard me shouting, turn it the other way. 😊 Can't wait to see what you come up with. I can imagine something attached to someone's hip area and operated by a pull cord attached front and back to their leg.
Hypnotic. And I'll be sure to binge on your other videos for a dive into energy scavenging. Interesting topic and I look forward to hearing more on it.
I've been thinking about this for decades.
I always wondered how these things worked. That was incredibly well described.
Seiko Magic Liver is truly brilliant and very efficient for Automatic Watch Movement and Rolex never follows that brilliant design
what a clever device, the simplest things are the best, and things that do something without moving are the best, like seat belt positioning mounts that always return the seatbelt to where its meant to be without any moving parts,
Fascinating to watch you operating this. Mechanism, it’s almost copying what your fingers were doing
Magic indeed, it is mesmerizing to watch it in action.
Very nice demonstration as usual.
Just a little remark: in the universe, the circular movement is quite frequent, isn't it ? Quite often the "linear" movement is just a quanta of a "circular" one. Transforming the linear in circular is a kind f normalisation.
man, that was awesome. i love this channel. thanks mate.
So it's a radial mechanical version of an electrical full bridge rectifier. Fascinating.
Most delightful to watch, thank you. I always wondered how this mechanism (self winding) works. I had a beautiful Rotary watch with self winding back in the seventies but unfortunately it got swiped.
That's cool, looks like it's modelled on a pendulum clock escapement mechanism which first showed up in the 13th century, but put to a slightly different use. Very creative.
This is magnificent piece of engineering, and still available for only few dollars, everyone can afford it, simple and beautiful like EM=C squared.
Great video! I love when you can make a model and observe the mechanism as you manipulate it with your hands. It takes a real world class instructor to do that instead of being lame and just explaining things by math formulas or reading verbatim a paragraph from a boring book.
I would place this lever on the side (not at the front) of each leg where the quadriceps and upper shins meet interfacing over the side of the knee cap. It turns out the Q angle (Quadriceps) of adult ranges between 18 degrees to 90 degrees when knee is at it's most extension and flexion. You can calculate how many tooth gets rotated during the movement and multiply that by two, as you have one on each leg, then you can estimate the output wattage from there. Love your outward thinking ideas. God bless
depending on the incline, wether you walk up or down it, you really wouldn't feel any use of energy at all. If anything, it would soften the blow to the knees, like if you're walking down a hill.
The simplest application I can think of would be to mount the thing in the middle of your lower back. Have small lines that would run from opposite sides of the drive-crank down to the back of your ankles\shoes. As you walk, the crank could shwish-swosh back and forth. Use that to spin the gear which could spin a small flywheel to generate power.
I love this concept, and its something that is also very human.
If you take a cylinder (ex. drink can) and apply force on one side with your thumb like you are grabbing it.
It will rotate forward, and now with your pointer finger apply force coming back and the item will so the same motion.
I love the idea of capturing the energy of a step, when you really think about how much force we put down per step for a 180lb person x 5,000 steps is a lot of energy that we burn, but could be translated into something more.
Very very good good and easy mechanism
Thank you from Jaipur India
More than two centuries ago there was some floor clocks that worked on an atmospheric pressure fluctuations. They could work without human support for decades! Imagine scaling this thing to a huge size that could generate pretty big amount of energy, for free.
Amazing ! There are many mechanical gadgets we haven't invented yet.
Those sidewalks... Might be fun for a few meters but if everywhere it will be exhausting to walk. Like walking uphill or in sand. Because the energy you harvest is not excess heat - it's extra cm that pedestrians need to lift their feet.
My biggest concern is that it seems like those arms would wear down rather quickly
It's so simple yet so astonishing!😮😮
The Vostok sprag clutch using ruby needle roller bearings is also interesting 😁
ingenious mechanism - legendary company - THE first automatic chronometer in space. The sagas of the battles, between the traditional Swiss - and upstart Japanese watch industries is a ballad in the war of the brave and the bold ....A truly epic stand-out tale of survival - in the entire history of Horology! It will make you laugh - it will make you cry. Casio has a fascinating history as well!
Just think, instead of putting spikes down on the sidewalks so that the homeless can't sleep there, they could just put these generating pads down so that every time they turn over when they sleep, the people looking down on them from the skyscrapers can charge their vapes! How exciting!
The energy that goes into walking is used in walking. If you attach a device to capture walking energy, the operator will notice that it's more effort to walk using the device.
One of my Khun Rikon tin openers has a lever that you push or pull & it creates movement in the same direction if pulled or pushed.
I think sitting on office chairs could be used too. Let them spring back up when we stand up. Whole body of weight on it. Just an idea. Thanks for sharing :)
Anyone who's cycled a bike with a dynamo will understand that adding energy generation to your own movement adds additional effort. Sometimes it's worthwhile, but worth bearing in mind it's not free
I developed a piezoelectric tile but costs, practicality and energy output make the whole approach challenging
That is awesome and it may help me with a project I am dreaming up!
Thank you!
Remember energy and matter can not be created or destroyed. Energy comes from somewhere, and in this case from your body. It will make you tired faster but it might be worth it if it keeps the scout drone operational. (Sidewalks you see early in the clip, good for people that will avoid them like they do gyms. Also probably feel sort of like you're walking on sand, full stride/energy input but only half the progress)
Thank you for sharing this piece of information.
Back in the mid-60's my dad purchased a Seiko self-winding watch. I was fascinated by it. Soon after that I received a Helbros self-winder for a birthday present. I think he was tired of me playing with his Seiko.
lol - weren't you tempted to take it apart?
@@ThinkingandTinkering You guessed it. Some of my disassembly projects from those days were one way, so I didn't go too far with the watch.
Thank you so much. This was very educating!
I'm a hiker. And usually use a solar panel to keep my electronics charged.
If this is going anywhere near a foot it has to be 100% comfortable and not rub anywhere.
I can do 16+ (sometimes 20+) miles in a day. Even the slightest problem with your feet can kill that.
If you walk on a pad that generates power from your steps that mechanism is increasing the difficulty of your walking. You're not generating power your stealing it.
I think it's interesting: all of our joints move in a circular motion, yet our body uses that to create linear motion.
Like throwing a ball or a punch....or any movement like that (swinging a golf club or baseball bat)... the energy comes from the rotation of the body, but it's used, in the end, to create linear force: a straight throw, pass or punch, a straight golf shot (or one with a more controlled flight), a straight baseball hit.
....if you throw a ball and just let go, it goes right into the ground. of course...its following the circular motion of your arm. Thus, we let your fingers drag on the ball, inducing backspin. That negates the circular motion of our body (among other things) and we get a longer, more straight throw (that's why your coach keeps telling you to 'follow through' when throwing a ball or shooting a basketball, kids 👍).
Just...something I always thought was curious about humans.
I actually own one of such Seiko watches with that very mechanism but have never realized how exactly it works. :-)
The amazing result one gets by a position of offset and angle of intervention .
What seems impossible and highly unlikely becomes plausible and eventually fact by interaction caused by the principle of cause and effect .
i've often wondered about scavenger systems throughout a forest, piggying off the wind sway of tree limbs
Very interesting and insightful. That’s a lot to think about. Cheers.
I've thought about stuff like this since I was an A Level student in the 1970s. I thought about electric cars, regenerative braking etc and have been thinking about it all ever since. The idea of tapping energy off the movement of our body interests me, principally because I wonder (but can't be sure) whether our bodies are in fact more efficient machines than anything we have created. If that is the case, and (for example) our bodies are made to work harder by walking on a floor that absorbs our working energy by yielding and itself generating energy, and if our bodies then require more calorie input because they are doing more work, and bearing in mind the energy cost of manufacturing, installing and maintaining these energy absorbing floors, then what is the real advantage they offer (if any) in energy savings. Thinking even more widely, what are all these humans doing walking around in places where the footfall is sufficient to justify investment in energy generating pavements. For example, is it to visit shopping centres where they buy a lot of staff that itself takes energy to make and which is not strictly essential? Is it do go to workplaces where they earn employment doing work that could just as easily have been done from where they live, and without co2 generating commutes. The more you think about this, the more there is to think about, and I start to realise that whilst some of the novel energy generating technologies may be fascinating to learn about, they may be a distraction from thinking deeply about the nature of how we live and how perhaps we might live differently in ways that are still meaningful and fulfilling but that make better use of that most efficient of machines - our bodies, and our minds - to build that planet saving sustainable future we all seek.
Converting earth's existing surface air pressure to energy is the current best solution.
If you want to generate electricity from walking, put piezoelectric crystals under the ball and heel, connect to a suitable voltage regulator. Mechanisms will break and jam under such complex motion but solid state devices will just keep working.