DIY Drawing Machine That Draws In Sand

the original mesmerograph could draw incredible images in sand like this but was big ugly hard to use had lighting problems and as you can see in this example of its actual drawing speed painfully slow so i built this new version that solves all those problems particularly the lighting and speed issues this video will show how to make one and how to use it it starts with a base of quarter inch plywood that's 19 inches in diameter next we have a 17 inch diameter disc of three quarter inch plywood which is what the motor is mounted on and this top disc is again three quarter inch plywood and it's 14 and a quarter inches in diameter this is the disc that rotates and drives the entire drawing machine it's covered with a sheet of 1 16 inch steel which is the base on which the magnets that hold the gears in place stick between the upper two discs is a 12 inch diameter pancake bearing three legs support the upper discs high enough to provide room for the motor i chose a 12 volt dc gear motor rated at 20 rpm but i run it at 6 volts for 10 rpm i found that at the higher speed the drawing action was so fast that it was jarring to watch 10 rpm is fast enough to be entertaining yet slow enough to project a certain note of graceful elegance next we have the main drive gear assembly it's a 19 inch diameter two and a half inch wide ring of three-quarter inch plywood with a 75-tooth gear cut into it i'll explain later how to design and make the gears mounted above it is a three-quarter inch by three-quarter inch plywood ring elevated by three-quarter inch shims the ring supports the tray of sand the machine actually draws on and the shims place it high enough to make room for the gears magnets and drawing arm that fit inside of it here we are with the two pieces we've already discussed put together the length of the three legs that connect the upper rings to the base is determined by the length of the legs which is determined by the motor you use to provide enough clearance in my case this ended up being five and a quarter inches tall next we need a tray to hold the sand in which the images are drawn i used a 19 inch diameter three quarter inch by three quarter inch ring of plywood with a disc of 1 8 inch thick factory enameled white board attached to the bottom you need to type with one-sided enameled white and the other black stick a ring of 12 volt led lights around the inside upper edge of the ring pass the wires through a groove cut into the plywood ring and tape it down flush place a 19 inch diameter by two and a quarter inch wide ring of the same white board material on top of the tray with a black side facing down this blocks direct view of the lights the glare from which would make the traces hard to see secure the tray with spring clips at each of the shim points i made these out of an old coat hanger here's what it looks like with the lights turned on the low position of the leds means their light barely grazes the surface of the sand creating bright hills and dark valleys that make the traces appear sharp and clear now it's time to cut some gears which is the most time consuming part of the build use one of the many online gear generators to create images of the gears you want i found 43 37 30 18 and 16 tooth gears work well with the main 75 tooth gear i used a pitch of five in a pitch angle of 27 enter those parameters and the number of teeth desired and the generator will calculate the pitch diameter as well as a scaled image of the gear capture the image resize it in the photo processing software of your choice so that it prints out at its correct size and then print it glue this to a piece of half inch thick plywood cut it out sand the teeth smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and lubricate them with a light coat of bar soap the pictures will have the center of each gear marked drill a 33 64 inch diameter hole at the marked center and remove the paper patterns drill a few half inch diameter holes along one radius of each gear the small gears may only have room for one hole cut a disc of half inch thick plywood slightly smaller than the inside diameter of each gear as defined by the root of the teeth drill a half inch diameter hole in the center of each disc and glue eighth inch thick super magnets to the bottom these will hold the gear to the metal sheet on the turntable pound the half inch dowel into the hole and cut it to length so that when the gear is on it the dowel is slightly lower than the face of the gear this is how the gears will be mounted on the machine and the dowels allow the gears to rotate the gears rotate pretty easily but a few pieces of teflon tape will make them run even easier you'll also need a fixed pivot which is a wood disc with magnets on its bottom sized in height so that it's the same height as the top of the gears the reason the first mesmograph was so large was that had a one-piece arm that carried the magnet that moved the ball bearing to produce traces in the sand this meant it had to be long enough to maintain contact with both pins at all times consequently it repeatedly stuck far beyond the edge of the drawing field to make the new mesmograph more compact i made a two-piece drive arm the sliding bar is a 9 inch length of half inch by 3 16 inch steel bar stock polished smooth a hole at one end with two small magnets fits onto a metal pin the magnets help keep the bar connected to the pin the magnet that pulls the ball bearing around the drawing field can be placed anywhere along its length just by sliding it wherever you want it the wooden half of the arm is nine inches long by one and a half inches wide and three quarters of an inch thick a groove cut along its full length is the track in which the steel bar slides this slot allows the metal pin to slide along its length and these holes are how the pin on the gear drives the arm this three ounce lead weight prevents the end of the wood arm from dipping down in those cases where the arm can't be fully supported and this is what the mechanism looks like in operation two six volt lantern batteries connected in series provide power the motor is driven by connecting just one of the batteries while the lights are connected across both altogether it took about 30 hours to make this machine well let's throw some gears on her and see how she works first up we'll try something simple a magnet glued to a three-quarter inch piece of plywood fixed to the 37 tooth gear i use a quarter inch slingshot ball for creating the traces this produces a slowly revolving series of ellipses to save some time let's speed things up have some short pieces of quarter inch wood and steel dowels handy to move around the holes in the various gears to create a wide range of traces [Applause] this is a typical spiral graph type image but still pretty neat next we'll keep the gear with the magnet the same the only difference is is we're going to drive this gear through a pinion which means that instead of the gear rolling around the outer gear now it's going to be rotating in the opposite direction it was before let's see what it does it's surprising how much a simple change like this makes let's hit the turbo button again to help locate the position of the magnet so you know where to place the steel ball tie a screw to the end of a string and hang it over the sand tray when it's over the magnet it'll point at it i think the herringbone or chevron pattern this setup makes is very attractive now let's try something a little bit more interesting i have the metal pin on the middle hole of the 37 tooth gear a wood pin on the fixed pivot and the magnet two inches from the metal pivot let's see what it looks like it looks like a propeller to me let's speed it up to see how it ends up looking pretty cool next all i'm going to do is slide the magnet one inch along the bar i've jumped to the end to save time and zoomed in because the trace is getting a little small this one makes me think of the fan to a jet engine moving the magnet another inch gives us this the trace is only 5 inches across yet has exquisite detail one inch farther and we've got something fan-like again yet this one has some extremely fine detail in the center let's try a different gear this time we're swapping out the 37 tooth gear with a 43 tooth gear again with the fixed magnet and the middle point i've gone back to high speed again because this one is a lot of fun to watch grow it reminds me of an artist's idea of an electron orbiting in an atom the seven lobes makes me think of nitrogen for a final pattern i put on the 37 tooth gear with a wood pin driving the arm and then the metal pin on a 30 tooth gear with the magnet about an inch and a half from the metal pin let's see what it looks like i have to say that at this point it looks like a real mess but before too long it's obvious it's going to be a five-pointed star it ends up looking a little like a star made out of ribbon that's been twisted the examples shown in this video are just a few of the hundreds if not thousands of unique traces the new mesmograph drawing machine can make i hope you enjoyed this video and as always thanks for watching

Channel: Wayne Schmidt

Views: 100,372

Keywords: drawing machine that draws in sand, drawing machines that draw in sand, sand drawing machine, sand drawing machines, drawing machine, drawing machines, mesmergraph drawing machine, diy drawing machine, diy drawing machines

Id: Cs5GuFEjZIg

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020