Mechanical to Electrical

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup. And at my parent's home, washing and ironing for the family took up the entire Monday - well into the evening.

Remember my mum's delight at getting a washing machine. Which only did the washing. Replaced a few years later with a twin tub.

Was thinking about just that (probably prompted by this thread) when I shoved a load of towels into the machine and went shopping. To find them ready for hanging up to dry totally by the time I came back. ;-)

Made me ponder about the best domestic electrical appliance ever invented in living memory. I'd say probably the automatic washing machine. The Hoover is probably older than anyone still alive.

[gareth]

Soft toilet paper?

[whisky-dave]

The ring pull.

but as for bikes how about the new treadmill ones

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But would Curries sell you a 5 year warranty for it?

[Colin Stamp]

Every now and then, I drag the family to a visitor centre at some electricity generating plant or other. The time before last was an off-shore wind farm. They had a shiny display with a handle to turn and a set of appliances which would power up as you turned the handle ever faster. It was obviously faked and the handle was ridiculously easy to turn. I asked the company rep about how accurate it was. "Oh yes, the faster you turn it the more power you can generate." She said, clearly not having understood the question. I left muttering to the wife and kids about blatant propaganda from the wind lobby. They rolled their eyes and we went to a nearby tea room.

The last one we went to was Sizewell B. They had what could have been exactly the same display. I asked exactly the same question and got exactly the same response. I grumbled all the way to "Sizewell Tea".

Cheers,

Colin.

[tony sayer]

There is or used to be one in the Science museum and it was bloody hard going to light a IIRC 20 or 30 watt bulb . That was a hand crank driving a genny directly no other wiring anywhere.

There was also a prog some time ago on the telly of a load of cyclists who had their bikes on frames with gennies attached it was showing how many would have to pedal to work various bits of household equipment.

Around 80 of them were needed to boil a kettle;!...

[tabbypurr]

What sort of gearing could one make or repurpose for something like this? Very high ratio, very robust and cheap to buy or easyish to make? The rest I can work out readily enough.

NT