this is payback for ultrasonic cutter isn't it. you beat me by 2 days to a wax motor video... I mean what're the odds??! I'm checking my garage for wire taps.
Damn! I didn't realise you'd already done the full wax motor exploration and chopping in half. On a plus note that means It was all a nice surprise when I opened mine. (Videos coming up soon.) The technology reminds me of that electrolytic automatic grease unit you took apart. Little energy, lots of force.
Hi Clive! Been thinking about you and your weaponized fogging devices. Might I suggest: Qty:1 of used "face covering"; Qty:5 of sterile agar petri dish; Qty:5 of shoddy anti-covid magic doo-dads?
Big versions of these wax motors also exist to open and close greenhouse vents, passive - just based on the ambient temperature. They could be good for solar panel positioning?
@Agent J The ones I've seen are about a foot long, look like hydraulic pistons. Operates on the same principle though. Greenhouse heats up, rod pokes at lever, opens the window up.
I have those also, but haven't received a working one yet. Amzon keeps sending me leaky, greasy boxes where the wax is ran out of the plastic bag and soaked through the box, it is so bad they wrap the printed product box to keep the delivery van from getting greased up. Maybe I should send it in and let the 200 # gorilla reverse engineer it so it don't leak all over.
Just spent a month in the hospital with my wife. I sat there next to her for days watching RU-vid. AvE helped me feel better everyday. I hope that all is well! My wife is home now and getting better. Almost lost her!
Smells fishy to me, or its one janky old dishwasher. How is that going to open for the main wash but not in the prewash and along with high temp/heavy duty vs normal temp or china/light wash cycles? A door isn't needed at all in a single stage wash.
If we knew the volume of paraffin in the cylinder and factored it with the bore X stoke of the actuator piston we get the ratio of expansion. That can be used to make an actuator with a very accurate stoke without the need for hardstops or feedback. Pack an old hydraulic cylinder full of it and with a little trial and error you have an automatic damper for the woodstove at the hunt camp.
It would need a pressure relief feature either in the wax chamber or a spring connection in the linkage, as the stroke will continue to grow with temperature beyond the melting point.
GM used this type of device in early 90's 4wd pickups to engage the front axle. As a result, in the dead of winter when it's 20 below, they had a tendency to let you down lol. Eventually they released a refit kit with an electric solenoid. An early fix for offroaders was to remove the wax hookamadook and attach an old school choke cable into the fork in the axle
@@mbrunnme I didn't mean "not quite" in a quantitative manner. I meant it in a true/false sense. Yes, 50lbs at 2mm diameter is way more than 50lbs at 1inch (50psi). That being said, pressure/area is irrelevant to this device's application.
So wats with the Cu in the wax? Is it to accelerate thermal transfer ? Or is it to take up space too tune the length of stroke by displacing expandable materal.
Ill be damned!!!!! Ive been wondering how that door was signaled too open sinve I was anout 3. In 1983. When i was crawling around watching my mom load the dishwasher. I remember asking people about it when I was young. Most people told me the door jist flipped open when you closed the door on the dishwasher. I knew they were wrong. But, they usually didnt take well too a little kid telli g them they were wrong. So, all these years I've been lost in the land of wonder. Lol Actually i haven't thought about it in many years. At least a couple decades. Nonetheless, you have answered my question and aided in ending my quest. The lesson learned here is to never give up. If you try and dont succeed.....jist shelve it and wait for the answer to get dropped in your lap. Lol.
Not always. My parents old dishwasher had a small button/lever on top of the detergent door and it simply contacted the top rack so as soon as the main door closed, the detergent door would pop open.
Also works pretty well in greenhouses. Greenhouse heats up, thingy pokes out of the wossissname, opens the window right up and stops your tomatoes getting fried. No pixies required.
Think ballscrew (that is the technical term). I work on some CNC lathes that will move their axis at 2200mm/s. It is a bit bulky for portability but can't argue with the speed, stroke and precision.
Well that was certainly interesting. Never heard of such an animal before. I saw a minor issue with the demo, if it needs two watts of input power at 240VAC, if you feed it 120VAC, and assuming it is a resistive load, the actual input power is only half a watt total, not one watt, since when you cut the voltage in half, the current will drop in half too, and as you know, power is voltage times current. So essentially it was only getting one quarter of the normal power it requires to work correctly. I thoroughly enjoy your channel, you have demystified many mysteries of tools, technique and I still have all my fingers as a result. Keep up the great work!
Similar technology as a thermostat in an engine coolant loop. Calibrated to stay closed, keeping coolant in a short loop until the engine reaches operating temperature, then open to allow flow through the radiator. Uses the temperature of the coolant to actuate open/closed, which can regulate the coolant temperature, thus keeping the engine in the correct operating temperature range. These devices are so simple, they can outlast the life of the vehicle, as long as internals and seals aren't contaminated/corroded of course.
Understood, yes they can break/fail, but the operative word is "can", as in can (or could) outlast the life of vehicle. Depends on coolant quality, regular service intervals etc...
If you use it for solar, once the panel has turned, the motor will cool down and it will go back, potentially turning the panel back, depending on how you do the mechanism. There are linear actuators that can push 50 pounds, they look like a piston, but have a motor and screw thread, we used them for damper actuators
The wax undergoes a phase change once solid as it cools. The last thermal motion to die out as it cools is free rotation of the CH2 units of the n-chain alkane. Whilst they rotate the linear molecule takes up a cylindrical space. As it cools the molecule stops rotation and settles down into a more compact regular zigzag, causing shrinkage after the wax is solid (ish). This is the phase change that causes the greatest change in volume as you heat the wax up and occurs below the melting point. With a almost pure n-chain alkane microcrystalline wax this phase change happens at a quite sharp temperature. If you have a wax with side chains and varying lengths of chain the phase change happens over a wider temperature range, and can thus be tuned to the application.
13:14 so as not to confuse my mom- DOM- drawn over mandrel tubing is not seamless, it is typically more precise and the entire seam weld is removed, but the seam remains. Seamless is made by extruding and is typically higher quality steel and even greater precision. I have personally pulled 3in 18g DOM tubing around a 2D die and it will split if it it not heated to 300F or so along with the seam being in the right place-been 17 years, so I forget where, but seams to be about 90 degrees off. bend)
That's actually one of the most brilliant inventions I've come across. Think about it, an actuator with essentially zero moving parts! These are very common actuators for central heating system valves over here in nordic countries.
Wax actuation? I had a boss who believed in wax actuation. When he felt we were moving too slow he'd take a stick and give a us few wax to actuate us. Oh, wait. That was whacks. Never mind.
I know this is an older video, but I recently installed a system using these. They threw me for a loop because I was expecting end switches like you'd find on a motorized valve actuator for hydronic heating. We had a problem, which wasn't a problem.... we were testing zones and expecting actuation within just a few seconds, 5 at most, allowing the hot water through and letting know everything was working. So after the zone didn't work for 15 seconds, we tried the next, and so on. Finally I remembered this video that I had seen when you made it and I began to suspect our valves might be this type, they were very compact and they only had two wires, but being some expensive high end brand, I didn't smack it with the pipe wrench to see what was inside. So long short.. Tested them again but we gave them time to warm up, and magically it actuated and let the water through. Really neat little valves, they work with normal motor controllers too and I think they'll outlast motor valves, maybe.... I've seen some motorized valves that are 50 years old and still working fine. After we got the system working I read the manual and it said they need about 30 seconds to warm up from the first use, 15 seconds avg after that. Thanks for the video, the customer was an engineer and he was a little bit impressed when I figured out what the valves were so quickly. You made me look great on that job!
AvE it's been a few months since I peeped ya, but you are honestly one of the best channels to expand my mind into how things work. So thank you for that
I love watching your videos, especially on oldschool oddities like this one, because of the new view points that occur from looking at the past equipment
These are pretty common in aerospace too! Emphasis on the space. They're used a lot for one-time actuators on satellites, usually as part of deployment, say for popping the latch on a protective door or cover
A similar process is used for leveling apartment buildings using thick steel tubes filled with water. The water is frozen and expands with earth moving pressure that is inevitable as gravity but much much greater. (About 10 to the 23rd more power comes to mind but certainly an insane amount more in any case).
They used to have these on some old SU carburettors, as the engine warmed up a little wax valve on the jet would lean the mixture off and when it was cold it would run a little richer. Nice idea in principle although in reality once they got a little older they caused more issues than they solved and could be replaced by a small stack of 1p coins.
Honda used the same kinda tech on their idle air control valves for decades. Coolant took the place of that 2W heater, and it was also motivated by a PWMable solenoid. The idea was that wax would allow a small amount of air to bypass the throttle plate when the engine was cold. Once the engine warmed up and entered closed loop ECU control, the solenoid took over as the wax closed the orifice by the amount it was formerly open when cold. A devilishly simple solution to a complex problem of cold start idle.
VW used this Wax actuator technique (late 80's) in their petrol engines to actuate the choke valve on the carburetors, heating up the motor changes the wax to fluid state and turning the choke valve open, when the motor cools, the wax returns to solid state, closing the choke valve. First attempts at creating an automated choke on petrol engines, worked fine as long as the fluid wax didn't leak out :-) Keep your wax in a clamp!
These are not just for Auto or HVAC. I was lucky enough to attend a seminar by the man whose company made wax motors for NASA. They were used to unlock stages for separation and to move the arms for extending the solar panels on many of the vehicles that NASA has launched. I can't find where I put down his name but the company is in Boulder, Colorado. He was one of the nicest down to earth persons that I have had the pleasure to meet.
you are one of the funniest fellows i have ever seen. some of the stuff you say is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS! your obviously well educated but you do a real fine job of being a normal guy.
Thanks for making these videos! Even when it's something I'm familiar with I still often learn a bit from you and always from the comments. I'm laying here on my back recovering from a cornea transplant in my right eye. The laying flat for 3 days straight is miserable and to make it worse it's away from home in a hotel. My brilliant wife cobbled up an arm clamped to a lamp next to bed that's elevating the iPad above me so I can lay flat and be entertained by folks like you at the same time.
I learned about wax motors about ten years ago when I was repairing my dishwashing machine. The wax motor was what actuated the pawl that holds the soap dispenser door closed until the cycle reaches a certain point. I remember reading "wax motor" and saying what they hell is that. So I looked it up on the internet and learned about them. Pretty damned neat, I must say. I spent many years as a machine designer and often used pneumatic (mostly Bimba) and hydraulic cylinders as actuators before I ever heard of wax motors. These must be used mostly in appliances. I believe the copper device you see in automotive engine thermostats are wax motors. I may have I even kept the old wax motor I replaced in the dish washer. It wasn't even the wax motor that was bad; it was a small silicone rubber bellows that sealed around the pawl that extended into the inside of the machine. It developed a tear and was allowing water to leak out the door. I went to the appliance parts store in town and the guy told me they didn't sell just that rubber seal; I'd have to buy the entire soap dish/wax motor assembly.
I remember as a kid building a robot that tracked light. It had three wheels, two of which were hooked up to independent motors. A photodiode is place on either side and controls the motor of the opposite wheel. I've always been blown away at the simplicity of that control system.
A lot of domestic extractor fans use wax actuators to open and close the louvres. They have a resistor attached to them, that after about 20-30 seconds, the wax gets hot enought to open the louvres. When you turn the fan off, the wax cools and closes the louvres once more.
Appliances use wax motors a lot. Take a dish washer for example, the soap container usually has a wax motor actuating the door open. That or a lever system. But they are everywhere.
Front load clothes washing machines seem to like using them for the door lock as well. I helped a friend repair the control board after the wax pellet heater shorted and fried the transistor driving it, in their Whirlpool Duet a few years back.
hey_allen The original Maytag Neptune washer with a mechanical timer models MAH3000, MAH4000, and MAH5500A all have the same issue, wax motor shorts and takes out the triac. Starting with the LED control MAH5500B they switched to a 2 winding push/pull solenoid that doesn't fail.
Hey AvE: First post, Solar Energy Professional here: There are actually several kinds of solar trackers that work based on the principle you mention: Not with wax, but with gasses. For a great example, check out Zomeworks- They've been selling this since the '80s: Their stuff is pretty simple, using physics because physics is Sexy: They use alcohol or something that has a low phase change temperature to act as a pump to move liquid between cylinders to shift the weight of the solar modules to follow the sun. Think "drinking bird" but on a larger scale.
Cholula Hot Sauce better yet how about we genetically modify sunflowers to be solar panels. I'm pretty sure uncle bumblefuck has a gene lab somewhere in the shop.
This same wax-driven motor is used to automatically open vents in greenhouses, in order to prevent the greenhouses from overheating. Such companies as Bayliss in England and Univent in Denmark make them. Car radiator caps also use wax-driven motors.
Awesome! I love seeing the weird motors! I'm wondering if you scale the thing up, if you will have the problem of needing to scale up the paraffin resovior to a point where it requires incredibly thick walls to redirect the force to the actuator. I guess the force will go out the hole as long as it is easier than bursting the resovior, with the upper force limit being somewhere around whatever it would take to expand the resovior walls... (as long as that is less than the force that could recompress the molten paraffin)
You like these I hate them. I worked in a modern school and they used these to control radiators in individuals classrooms. They also used normally closed valves. Here is the problem these were made of plastic and they failed because on a normally closed valve they are on all winter and the plastic cooks and fails closing the valve and freezing the room. Good idea badly engineered.
Be assured, there are different qualities of them on this world. Some of these actuators work for more than 20 years now. Adjustable radiator thermostats work on the same principle.
I’ve seen solar panels actuated by the weight of two connected reservoirs playing teeter-totter on either side of the panel; the low one gets more sun, heats up and the fluid expands, pushing material into the high side. High side is now heavier so moves down, which brings it into the light, and the cycle repeats
Common place to find a wax motor, in the wifes front loader washing machine. Thanks to your friends at CSA, manufacturers are required to keep the door closed/locked until the motion of ocean comes to a complete stop during a power fail. An electrical lock won't work, no power no lock, but a wax motor with its slow operation fits the bill. Turn it on and door lock will engage slowly, cut the power and it will disengage just as slow.
I saw wax cylinders to open green house vents. Handy little rigs! Told them they would want to disconnect them before the cold sets in. No need to worry, its just wax they said. Fall came around and they had 12 macaroni cylinders great for nothing! Great thought on moving a solar panel, beats trying to use a rain barrel and controlling flow actuated movement.
Railroad locomotives do not use antifreeze in their cooling systems, only water. So, to prevent the cooling system from freezing when the engine isn’t running, they have drain plugs equipped with wax motors that will automatically drop out and drain the water out of the cooling system whenever the temperature drops below 40 degrees F. Purely self contained and mechanical.
Lucas Copper has a higher thermal conductivity than aluminum, meaning it'll disipate heat faster. Therefore, transfer heat out of the wax into the brass body faster.
Would cost tens of thousands, to have someone with your intelligence, at a college to learn the things you teach. Thank you, and this is far more entertaining.
Making me laugh with every video and amazing me with your knowledge of all silly things like, specific heat capacity, the polar nature of water and so on. Keep entertaining! I'm looking forward to it.
I got a 89 Silverado with a wax actuator. When I first got it I thought the 4x4 was broke, until I learned I had to wait 10 to 15 seconds for the actuator to heat up the wax.
GM used them alot on the early 90's front differentials on their 4x4's. In Canukistan, during the frigid cold months. It would take FOREVER ( and quite often it would fail) to engage the 4x4. Was many a aftermarket system put in to fix that problem.
Yup, as i was watching the vid I was thinking, HEY GM tried using those back on at least the 88-98 front differentials for the 4X4. What a pain, 'specially when you need or use 4X4 mostly in the....um...what's that season called again...OH, WINTER!! Dumbassery at it's finest.
I work with large volumes of wax. When im melting down 30 plus liters of wax the booms I feel in the house are intense. The pressure from the wax stretched the steel toggles on the container, bent the bottom out of shape among other things. The geyser like eruptions are intense especially if some water is trapped with the wax. All you need is melted wax and a slight impulse of heat to create these booms. Thanks for the video, this confirms my thoughts that wax can be used for more than just candles 🕯
