This modular appliance concept reuses a single motor for different purposes

There has been a strong trend recently in people preferring more modular products, particularly when it comes to furniture like desks and tables. Modular furniture often saves space and allows owners to use the product as they need, expanding or reducing depending on the situation. Unfortunately, that trend doesn’t easily lend itself to appliances, where a product’s life almost always begins and ends in the form it came with. While that makes manufacturing and use simpler, it is also wasteful and unsustainable in the long run. Thankfully, there are a few visionaries that are challenging the status quo and thinking up new ways to protect our future, like this modular motor system that can be used in three different appliances, depending on what you need at the time.

Designer: Daniel Wu

There are quite a few appliances in our homes that require a motor to run. Admittedly, not all of them use the same type or size of motors. Part of the problem in developing a modular appliance system is figuring out which parts can actually be reused and which parts are so specific to a function that there is nothing like it. In the case of the M-1, a powerful motor can be used to drive not only appliances but also power tools you might need in maintaining your house.

The primary function of the motor is in an electric fan, an appliance that admittedly makes less sense in countries where a heater is much more needed. But even in regions where electric fans are common, you might not need it all year round or all the time. Being able to use that motor for something else saves time, money, and resources for both manufacturers and consumers.

For example, the M-1 motor can be removed from that electric and then slotted into a new chassis to become a leaf blower. Unfortunately, the motor might not be suited for going in the opposite direction to suck up air and particles like a vacuum cleaner. It is, however, strong enough to also be reused as an industrial mixer but is probably too powerful for anything else. Admittedly, a motor might have fewer possible applications, but probably because very few have designed appliances around the concept of modularity.

A modular appliance system wouldn’t just be about having flexible features that consumers would enjoy. It is also about reducing waste when it comes to production and the use of resources for production. Instead of manufacturing multiple motors for specific purposes, you can have just a single motor for two or three applications.

Furthermore, it can also help extend the life of those appliances, even when parts break down. Instead of having to buy a new electric fan, a new leaf blower, or a new mixer, you can simply buy only the parts you need to replace, like the motor, and plug it in. These again save up on resources and money, but, unfortunately, our current consumer economy thrives on making a profit out of buying new complete products all the time.

The post This modular appliance concept reuses a single motor for different purposes first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Mechanical 7-Segment Clock Tells Time with Servos

When it comes to digital clocks, they typically use segmented or dot-matrix displays in order to tell the time. But one thing most of these displays have in common is that have no moving parts. Not so with this unusual timepiece, which looks like a digital display, but is actually mechanical.

Michael Klements of The DIY Life built this cool clock that uses 28 micro-servo motors to move its segments into place.

The brains of the operation are an Arduino Uno controller and a DS1302 clock module to keep time. As the minutes tick away, the circuit and code instruct the servos to rotate back and forth. In the back position, it hides the segment on its side, while in the forward position, the segment is visible. By 3D printing the segments with a brightly-colored translucent green filament, they look kind of like they’re illuminated. You can see the clock in action in the video below:

If you’d like to build your own mechanical 7-segment clock, you can check out all of the details over on Instructables or on The DIY Life. You’ll need some basic electronics skills, along with access to a 3D printer.

Twisting Steel with LEGO Motors

LEGO bricks are some of the most awesome things on earth. They’re incredibly versatile for building all kinds of structures, and you can make some pretty impressive machines with them when you combine them with Technic and Mindstorms parts. I’ve always assumed that LEGO motors and gears aren’t particularly strong, but it turns out with the proper engineering, you can use them to bend and twist steel.

Brick Experiment Channel loves to create LEGO machines that show off their strength. He recently built a rig that uses a pair of LEGO Power Functions XL motors along with a number of gears to reduce their speed and increase their torque output. The result is a machine that that outputs 15 Newton meters (~11 lb-ft.) of torque, and is capable of taking a stainless steel axle and twisting it like a drill bit (or a Twizzler).

The builder’s ultimate goal was to see if he could actually break the steel rod before the LEGO parts would fail. By twisting the metal back and forth numerous times, he was ultimately able to introduce enough metal fatigue to to make the axle crack. It’s pretty amazing that this is possible, and looks like a fun science experiment for LEGO fans to try and replicate at home.

Virgin Galactic donates SpaceShipTwo rocket motor to the Smithsonian

You might see a piece of private spaceflight history on display when you visit Washington, DC in the future. Virgin Galactic has donated SpaceShipTwo's (VSS Unity) historic rocket motor to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This is the...