[HN Gopher] Artificio de Juanelo
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       Artificio de Juanelo
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 44 points
       Date   : 2024-04-02 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | 3by7 wrote:
       | 3D animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwU6m9tjM2A&t=74s
        
         | bragr wrote:
         | The power transmission to the spoons remind me of the rod line
         | powered jack pumps in early oil fields. You can still find 100
         | year old wells with that kind of power distribution but they
         | are rare
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfTfmGIVl4c
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-k_Ip8RgIA
         | 
         | https://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Central%20...
        
         | resolutebat wrote:
         | Whoah. That's an excellent video, and it shows how this was
         | _far_ more complicated than the simplified diagram in
         | Wikipedia: the device was over 300 meters long!
        
       | littlestymaar wrote:
       | Related, the _Machine de Marly_ which supplied the fountains of
       | _Chateau de Versailles_ :
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_de_Marly
        
       | graypegg wrote:
       | Is there any known reason why they didn't go for these scoops on
       | a chain traveling along the side of the hill, like a funicular?
       | [0] They already had a rather tall lift!
       | 
       | Maybe that much water in buckets would be too heavy for the water
       | wheel to drag up alongside the hill? One benefit of the spoons is
       | they only lift the total volume of one of the spoons at a time,
       | since each tower has a store of water it's holding but not moving
       | yet.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9E%D0%B4%D0%B5%D...
        
         | lqet wrote:
         | > Maybe that much water in buckets would be too heavy for the
         | water wheel to drag up alongside the hill? One benefit of the
         | spoons is they only lift the total volume of one of the spoons
         | at a time, since each tower has a store of water it's holding
         | but not moving yet.
         | 
         | I think that is the primary reason. Looking at the animation
         | linked in another comment
         | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwU6m9tjM2A&t=74s), it becomes
         | clear just how many of these chains would've been necessary.
         | Not only would a single water wheel have to be able to lift
         | probably thousands of liters of water without any counterweight
         | - you also need some continuous power transmission mechanism
         | which can withstand the enormous forces to achieve that. Also,
         | you would need some kind of safety catch to prevent
         | catastrophic back-flow of all the kinetic energy stored in the
         | system in case the water wheel is suddenly out of the water.
         | 
         | On the other hand, the oscillating spoons probably wouldn't
         | work when too many of them are submerged in water, and their
         | delicate wooden mechanism probably also wouldn't survive a
         | flood or driftwood. Which is why they used a simple robust iron
         | chain for getting the water to a flood-safe level.
         | 
         | It's really quite ingenious.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-02 23:00 UTC)