GameboyRMH wrote: Sort of related topic, I'm convinced that the guy who writes Attack on Titan was playing with an action figure, 2 box cutters, and 2 badge reels one day.
LOL...
But what explains the powder keg/cannon grappling hook devices...
I straighten and shape paperclips to make useful tools for when I don't have the tool and it requires something that a paperclip could substitute for...
Sometimes a somewhat straightened paperclip IS the tool you need: for example, they are the exactly perfect size for unclogging the windshield washer jets on a 1978 taxi-package Chevrolet BelAir (Canadian de-contented Impala) that was used, abused, and beaten up as a security patrol car and always came back for more. That thing was unkillable. One of its stablemates (we started with three, then got a '79, then converted to a bunch of 9C1s in 1981) was actually totalled twice and repaired each time. Didn't seem to faze it.
Um, sorry... please resume discussion of paperclips.
I've watched this thread from a distance waiting to see if, and how, I might participate in a meaningful way 
. Well I don't think I can. In a meaningful way, I mean. But I can understand the issue. I was trained as an engineer. And even though I spent most of my career in technical sales, product management, and marketing, I must admit I had a little plastic top on my desk, and whenever I was on a phone call I spun that top! It focused my analytical mind in a non-analytical profession. Yup. I understand this. The day I retired I took a few things home with me. That top was one of those things. It's now in my garage and I still spin it occasionally. But I really don't need to do that anymore.
great...now Im going to end up making a C-battery powered paperclip desk fan...the guys I work with go nuts for silly desk trinkets (Im definitely one of them too).
Build thread to follow lol
dculberson wrote: There's a reason why many office jobs pay more than many hands on jobs. Because if the pay was the same no sane person would choose the office job.
say what?
I do this, especially on the phone. I usually have all sorts of stuff to play with at my desk. More often than not they are 3D printed prototypes of whatever I've been working on lately. Of course the other thing I do when I'm on a boring call is just read GRM on my second monitor :) Being in R&D my office is usually pretty interesting, so when I'm not on the phone there are plenty of cool things to keep me from boredom.
But...my job is designing aircraft seats. Occasionally I have to sit in them :( I've had my butt in an economy class seat for almost 2 hours now and still have a ways to go.
During lunch I either A) run 2.2 miles with a cross-training workout in the middle, or B) go on the group bike ride (~15 miles)
4cylndrfury wrote: great...now Im going to end up making a C-battery powered paperclip desk fan...the guys I work with go nuts for silly desk trinkets (Im definitely one of them too). Build thread to follow lol
DO IT. Actually, please start a thread, link it here, and let everyone else make and post pictures of their own paperclip electric motor.
A couple of years after building the Saturday Morning Dorm Room Boredom Motor, I was taking an engineering lab class and we actually built small electric motors with some more conventional materials. We then hooked up oscilloscopes to the voltage input to measure the speed (basically like a tach). Because of my vast experience building crap from crap, I was able to tweak my motor to run the fastest. 
volvoclearinghouse wrote:4cylndrfury wrote: great...now Im going to end up making a C-battery powered paperclip desk fan...the guys I work with go nuts for silly desk trinkets (Im definitely one of them too). Build thread to follow lolDO IT. Actually, please start a thread, link it here, and let everyone else make and post pictures of their own paperclip electric motor. A couple of years after building the Saturday Morning Dorm Room Boredom Motor, I was taking an engineering lab class and we actually built small electric motors with some more conventional materials. We then hooked up oscilloscopes to the voltage input to measure the speed (basically like a tach). Because of my vast experience building crap from crap, I was able to tweak my motor to run the fastest.
OK, Im on it...first, I need to find my old hard drive and steal the magnet...HD magnets are ridiculous!
https://youtu.be/9k7zywli4Vg
In addition to the C cell fan one can do a AAA powered linear drive train.
DanielCut wrote: If you put one in each side of an electrical outlet then drop a third across those two, you get to disrupt your Jr. high math class for a while.
In jr high, I wrapped one around the two prongs of the overhead projector in my English class, and then promptly forgot.
About 3 hours later, the breaker blew on that whole wing of the school when my English teacher plugged the projector in, and suddenly I remembered what I did...
My only contribution to this conversation is that the french word for them is "trombones".
Lesley wrote: My only contribution to this conversation is that the french word for them is "trombones".
That might be the best contribution that this thread has had.
Mine might be the most useless.
So, Ive been playing around with a homemade motor, and im striking out. Ive tried several methods (spin a magnet over an electrified coil, spin an electrified coil over a magnet etc etc). Ive tried the home brew variety where Im bending up office supplies, Ive tried using some better quality materials (still junk, but not office supplies), and the best Im able to do is to get the axle to rotate around a half revolution, and then stop.
Is it important for the coils to be insulated from each other? Ive seen mention of laminated or enameled copper wire, which Im guessing is insulating the loops of the coil. Does that sound right?
4cylndrfury wrote: So, Ive been playing around with a homemade motor, and im striking out. Ive tried several methods (spin a magnet over an electrified coil, spin an electrified coil over a magnet etc etc). Ive tried the home brew variety where Im bending up office supplies, Ive tried using some better quality materials (still junk, but not office supplies), and the best Im able to do is to get the axle to rotate around a half revolution, and then stop. Is it important for the coils to be insulated from each other? Ive seen mention of laminated or enameled copper wire, which Im guessing is insulating the loops of the coil. Does that sound right?
Sounds like you have no kind of system in place to control when and where the electromagnetic fields are applied, so you've made an eddy current brake system at most.
Brushed DC motors use a mechanical system to control where the fields are applied, this would be the easiest system for you to replicate. Brushless and induction motors use very complex electronic control systems.
I straightened a paperclip last night to depin a relay socket.
success
https://www.youtube.com/embed/THmj7ddT4Iw
I know its not a paperclip, and, its also not that straight...but, I did make it, and it does turn, and it is sitting on my desk, so, I call it a success
No build thread though, its very simple:
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