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.
@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.
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?
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.
Just spent a month in the hospital with my wife. I sat there next to her for days watching TH-cam. AvE helped me feel better everyday. I hope that all is well! My wife is home now and getting better. Almost lost her!
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.
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!
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
This reminds me a lot of Nitinol actuators. Nitinol's actuation temperature and be tuned to anywhere between about -100 to 100 degrees C depending on the exact chemistry of the alloy and the amount of cold work you put into it. It would be interesting to know which has the capacity for more power, wax or metal
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.
Thanks. Also interesting actuators are vehicle radiator fan-clutches and temp-safe shower valves. Both use silicone wax. Vehicle thermostats? Your solar actuator could be adapted from an old ice-maker. Excellent Vijeo.
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!
Others have mentioned that they are used to actuate door locks on front loading washing machines. The one on my electrolux went bad after 5 years. Thanks for the video, I have wondered how these things work.
That paraffin and copper powder mix is also used in heat-pipe coolers on computers, it works well until you decide to melt down a bunch of scrap aluminum and throw one in the melt, that was a fun day!,
Works much like a thermostat on a vehicle cooling system. It too utilizes Parafin wax to open the thermostat as the engine temperature rises. The actuation for most vehicles occurs around 180° F however that depends on the spring stiffness.
Thanks for this teardown. This actuator is really cool and I did not know about the thermal expansion of paraffin. There lots of comments so I did not read them all but if you want to know how much force it is exerting you could measure the spring constant, k by putting weights on the spring out of the assembly and then calculate force using F=kx where x is the total compression (including initial compression of the spring by the cover).
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.
Those things are used to control underfloor heating zones in the UK. The PTC can arc across and blow the fuse in the controller. However measuring it with an ohmmeter it looks OK. New ones have a mechanism which can make it normally-open or normally-closed, with a special “conversion procedure”.
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.
Automotive coolant thermostats use similar wax motors as you mentioned, but many modern cars also use heaters in the thermostat so that the manufacturer has more control over the engines normal operating temperature. Most of the heated thermostats are rated for around 220 deg F (which used to be half way to overheating) for fuel economy/efficiency (tailpipe emissions) reasons, but they can run the tstat heater to drop the opening temperature as needed, since 220F + is not so good for performance. The heaters are usually PWM controlled so they can vary the tstat opening temperature over a reasonable range.
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.
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.
To move the panels, I've seen gas piston actuators filled with R22. The temp difference between day and night and the expansion caused by it cause the panels to rotate during the day, resetting when it cools.
They are very commonly used in floor-heating distributors, for the remote controlled valves. (in most cases just completely opens / closes the valves for the single heating coils in the floor for all the different rooms)
The same principal is used for greenhouse window openers. It's an actuator filled with some sort of gas and when the temperature reaches a certain level the gas inside the actuator expands and that action opens the greenhouse window. When the temperature goes down the window closes again. So it doesn't use any power source other than the sun.
For a sun tracker, just use a simple comparator circuit with an H bridge, two phototransistors with a shade between em, and a linear motor. When the shade darkens one of the PTs, the comparator will move the motor to point your panels in the correct direction.
IDK, but only America left four wheelers on the Moon 🌒! Hello, we didn't lock them up, like, come on, I dare you guys to steel this! Hey China! Can you build a faster moon buggy? I bet you can't! Your technology is inferior!
This type actuator, is common, in older 4WD vehicles, as with GMC ,1996 YUKON , 4WD Actuator. Several shown on TH-cam ! Mine is currently inop , and will not shift out of 2WD. Interesting video !
That delay in the motor actuating means that it is nearly impossible for it cause a water hammer when the valve it controls closes. That delay is also useful for limiting short cycling especially since some heating system use wax motor with end switched to turn on boilers, chiller, or pumps.
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.
first the antikythera mechanism, now this? I would be worried.
Haha i can hear your voice and intonation as i read this comment
Do it anyway!
This Old Tony as Jake said please do it anyway. 😍
You two. I can't tell who's knipping at who's heels...
I use similar wax motors to open vents in my greenhouse when the temperature gets too high. Passive; no electricity.
@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.
@@GmanInd I think the key here is "do not use where the temperature exceeds 120 degrees", delivery trucks can get very hot.
Been thinking of the same sort of thing for solar. There's got to be some way to get them to face the sun with passive action. Plants do it.
If anyone can you could! You’re so smart :)
This already exists.
@@pirobot668beta The problem with that is that it'll do nothing on cold, sunny days, it'd only work on specific sun/air temp ranges.
Plants do it because they're alive, though
A BEAM solar head?
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?
Now I've watched both. Did ToT ever do his? I can't find it. A nod would be as good as a wink to a blind horse. No. That was an album. I mean link.
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?
Also thermostats in a car have a wax motor.
So the angle of the dangle is directly proportional to the heat of the meat?
Plus the size of the prize...
...and the square of hair and the cube of tube
Factor in the Sag of the Bag
Precisely
One must also not forget the swole of the pole in proportion to the width of the hole.
"It grew about 2mm"
That one hits a bit too close to home.
Lmaooooo
Appy ice to the burned area
Sad, so sad.
Wow. Amazing how sane the comments are in here. You guys rock.
Speak for yourself, Earthling . . .
Smaller ones are most commonly used in dishwashers to open the soap door flap speaking from experiance they get quite warm
Ray M wow.
Thanks I have wondered how those worked for years and haven’t had an excuse to take one apart.
All the ones I've serviced where just regular electric motors driving a timer contacts and a the door. No fancy wax motor
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.
My old Electrolux had this. I'm pretty sure I still have it laying around in my heap of jun... Uhmmm... In my shop.
Ola Magnus Lie The proper term is Empire of Dirt.
I am going to use this to push my 32 year old son out of the house, slowly but steady.
kvid so you'd still have to light an fire under his ass? Lol
You can do the same thing with a baseball bat
I hope that was a joke/sarcasm, otherwise you did a piss poor job of raising your child.
No you won't. If you were the type to do anything about it, it would already have happened. He is also well aware of that fact. Fun to dream though.
don't do it dad
I had 3 double Bourbons and this all made so much more sense.
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.
10-15 percents says the gargler. Maybe the copper is to speed up the cool down? as the waks has a good thermal storage value.
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.
I reckon things would get awful smokey before your flue was at full chooch!
Sounds dangerously close to a pipe bomb to me.
It might be that the system uses flow sensors and a microcontroller to shut off current to the PTC heating element before the actuator overextends.
"This thing's gonna need some more champagne and caviar to get into her. It's a fancy uptown rig." LMAO
Sitting besides my fiances hospital bed, waiting for her to wake up, your videos really lighten my day! Thank you Uncle Bumblefuck!
Alexander Grützner I hope everything is OK .
texasdee slinglead Thanks, her situation gets better every day
God bless you both!
Wishing you both the best, brother ❤️
Just spent a month in the hospital with my wife. I sat there next to her for days watching TH-cam. AvE helped me feel better everyday. I hope that all is well! My wife is home now and getting better. Almost lost her!
I see them!
Hand Tool Rescue. Lol everyone else pointed them out as well so your fans and AVE fans are 1 in the same. Your work is awesome man keep it up.
Happy fathers Day to you AvE, and to all the viewers here on your channel! God bless all of you!
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
Waxuator
chris mutter brillliant
Totally underrated comment!
Damn! 50psi with 2mm?!? I thought I was doing well lifting my shower towel with 2 inches!
50psi? Not quite. He only said 50lbs.
@@benargee It's way more than 50 PSI, because the plunger that comes out is less than a square inch of area.
@@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.
@Danger Bear allow me to clarify. P E N I S
Hot diggity, i work in the factory what makes those! the production line is amazingly old and modern at the same time!
Thomas froberg Petersen can you post some video of that line?
Do a full _How It's Made_ episode on it!
spankeyfish haha, sorry man, corporate rules don't allow for that
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.
Thomas froberg Petersen - Ask them - the publicity might do them good! 😀
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!
Yeah. P = V^2/R
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)
I should make more comments lime this, but incorrect- so AvE will pin them. Love those pins!
So my Cockford Ollie "FU" mug arrived. Took it to work and the boss said he better not see it again! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
What was his problem with it?
Not much travel on this one. I assume there are much longer stroke versions. (asking for the wife)
Its going to be too slow to be enjoyable i gues... But there are linear Actuators hat can to 160mm/sec !
Lukas I think I saw that video on another website.
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.
I recommend a saws-all with the “right” attachment. I saw a video on a channel by accident whilst watching In Range TV.
Short stroke, but plenty of oomph behind it...as Archimedes said, give me a long enough lever and i'll screw the girl...or something like that
Your dishwasher detergent door is opened by a wax motor .
Technically it could even be actuated by the hot water during the wash...
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.
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
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.
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.
spring wore out on my last one.
They last a long time but certainly not outlast the vehicle. They get weak, stuck, or the parafin escapes and the stat does not open at all.
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...
Some old skookum 4x4 actuators we're just wax actuators! Great vid AvE! They are the best!
Who would have thought that waxing philosophical might could do work.
When you wax on wax off long enough you eventually find a use for it
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.
Oh god, I’m singing smooth actuator in my head, now you are
How 'bout the stamina? Are there any dangers if it lasts more than 4 hours?
DOM---Drawn Over Mandrel
To The Top Crane isn’t DOM the same as CREW but with one more step? The drawn over the mandrel part?
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.
Danfoss, pretty good central heating circulation
pumps, and fridge compressors.
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
Good video. A little anticlimactic. Like she said, I thought it would get bigger. It must be cold in the empire of dirt.
James Hall well you know, she says it's only 6 inches but smells more like a foot ;).
lol!
Jamie Bowman fark, that’s funny...
Without question this is the best channel on TH-cam!!!
From watching this, it makes me think of an automotive thermostat. Same principle as it at least
That's the opposite, viscus couplings get thicker as they're heated up.
Yeah waxstat thermostat.
He mentions that in the video.
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).
older Hondas also used them to control cold idle speed.
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
I love the OSHA approved plug there in the old “kill-a-watt”
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.
fascinating technology I had no idea existed; paraffin is non-polar so it cant be microwaved
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.
But what about attaching a bunch of small solar panels to a field of sunflowers? Now that's green energy.
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.
Cholula Hot Sauce damn! Your right.
And batteries!
Haven't thought of wax hands for 55 years. Thanks for bringing back that memory 👍
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.
Did the 1p coins still expand and contract? Maybe the copper in there is also doing part of the work?
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!
0:52 To me, it looks more like a lint roller, like what you'd use after your dog sleeps on the couch.
You have some really good ideas my friend.
But this is one of the best I've seen 😘
My head is spinning 😁
time for a race between paraffin and bi-metallic strip.
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
Honda uses something similar on there cbr1000rr that's holds a high idle until engine is warm
I have an 1985 Honda car that does the same thing using manifold vacuum controlled by a parafin switch.
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.
Some dishwashers still use a wax motor to open the detergent cup and steam exhaust vent.
Bushougoma what you talking about? my wife doesn’t have a detergent cup built in.
Mine has steam coming out of her vent every time I forget to put my clothes in the hamper.
This reminds me a lot of Nitinol actuators. Nitinol's actuation temperature and be tuned to anywhere between about -100 to 100 degrees C depending on the exact chemistry of the alloy and the amount of cold work you put into it. It would be interesting to know which has the capacity for more power, wax or metal
Didn't you get yelled at for going out to play with your Sunday School shirt on . LOL
I like the way you inserted wires into outlet, what matters is, if it works it fits.
its like opening a dyson vacuum and getting a lg motor
thats solar panel idea is brilliant dude one of the smartest things i have ever heard
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.
Ah, that explains why they won't come open when you are in a hurry.
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.
Oh that’s why I have to warm up my wife before the weekly poking begins.
As a proud Dane, seeing Danish company danfoss on your desk lifts my mood.. about 2 mm. 😊 love the vids!
These are usually what delays the washing machine door opening after the power goes off.
Thanks. Also interesting actuators are vehicle radiator fan-clutches and temp-safe shower valves. Both use silicone wax. Vehicle thermostats? Your solar actuator could be adapted from an old ice-maker. Excellent Vijeo.
GM used wax actuators for the front axle on the full sized 4X4 trucks. They move the front axle locking collar.
Blazer02LS Beat me to it.
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!
“ ahh the little nub came out” LMAO!
Others have mentioned that they are used to actuate door locks on front loading washing machines. The one on my electrolux went bad after 5 years. Thanks for the video, I have wondered how these things work.
Hmm... I’m interested in whatever Ridgid tool you’re about to tear down...
you donky Those are Ridgid (or AEG) batteries in the box on his bench.
That paraffin and copper powder mix is also used in heat-pipe coolers on computers, it works well until you decide to melt down a bunch of scrap aluminum and throw one in the melt, that was a fun day!,
A more sophisticated automotive engine thermostat. Huh. Well i guess...
Edit. 5:50 mark. Yeah exactly.
Chad Pendt 👍
Works much like a thermostat on a vehicle cooling system. It too utilizes Parafin wax to open the thermostat as the engine temperature rises. The actuation for most vehicles occurs around 180° F however that depends on the spring stiffness.
Well, guess it's not bedtime yet.
Thanks for this teardown. This actuator is really cool and I did not know about the thermal expansion of paraffin. There lots of comments so I did not read them all but if you want to know how much force it is exerting you could measure the spring constant, k by putting weights on the spring out of the assembly and then calculate force using F=kx where x is the total compression (including initial compression of the spring by the cover).
I noticed you have Hand Tool Rescue’s 1879 wrenches in the background. Any chance of a review?
He listened, even broke one. U were chosen by the claw! Uncle BumbleFuck never misses a thing!
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.
Same way a thermostat in a car works.
Those things are used to control underfloor heating zones in the UK. The PTC can arc across and blow the fuse in the controller. However measuring it with an ohmmeter it looks OK.
New ones have a mechanism which can make it normally-open or normally-closed, with a special “conversion procedure”.
DOM. Drawn Over Mandrel
How are those TShirts doin?
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.
"Wax motors" also found use in car cooling systems to regulate the flow of water between the engine and 'radiator'.
Good ideas. Honeywell makes a very high force thermostatic mixing valve actuator. The one I'm thinking of is reliable for decades. No power needed.
whats dew claws nickname for you ? is this classified information ?
Uncle Bumblefuck
Avunculus Bombus sexus
Automotive coolant thermostats use similar wax motors as you mentioned, but many modern cars also use heaters in the thermostat so that the manufacturer has more control over the engines normal operating temperature. Most of the heated thermostats are rated for around 220 deg F (which used to be half way to overheating) for fuel economy/efficiency (tailpipe emissions) reasons, but they can run the tstat heater to drop the opening temperature as needed, since 220F + is not so good for performance. The heaters are usually PWM controlled so they can vary the tstat opening temperature over a reasonable range.
The copper content could be used for doping the reaction times, since copper has insane heat retention
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.
Am I the only one who was watching the opinel instead of the motor in the beginning of the video?
I was wndering about it.
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.
I used to have a lot of respect for Canadians until I found out one invented the ham and pineapple pizza. Unsub.
R B 🍪
The Hawaiians invented the pizza but it included hot peppers that was poison to a Canadians taste buds so Canadians removed them.
We also invented; hockey, basketball, insulin, the paint roller, Super man, wonderbra, garbage bags, and The Ceaser drink. Your welcome 😆
That’s just what I remember... I am sure there is a lot more.
David Kinch the world thanks you for the wonderbra.
To move the panels, I've seen gas piston actuators filled with R22. The temp difference between day and night and the expansion caused by it cause the panels to rotate during the day, resetting when it cools.
She be a grower not a shower
ColdensCustoms built like an accordian
They are very commonly used in floor-heating distributors, for the remote controlled valves. (in most cases just completely opens / closes the valves for the single heating coils in the floor for all the different rooms)
Yea, I totally made a mold of my "finger"
Ano thats what you told the teacher before you got suspended for indecent exposure.
The same principal is used for greenhouse window openers. It's an actuator filled with some sort of gas and when the temperature reaches a certain level the gas inside the actuator expands and that action opens the greenhouse window. When the temperature goes down the window closes again. So it doesn't use any power source other than the sun.
Its DANISH ...
And we all have them controlling our in floor heating system.
For a sun tracker, just use a simple comparator circuit with an H bridge, two phototransistors with a shade between em, and a linear motor. When the shade darkens one of the PTs, the comparator will move the motor to point your panels in the correct direction.
Wasn't a wax motor used in the moon buggy?
Jttv if I remember correctly it wasn't a motor but a way of absorbing the heat and keeping the components cool
Ya your right I went and looked it up after I left the comment.
no insults, no fights, 10/10 best comment section
IDK, but only America left four wheelers on the Moon 🌒! Hello, we didn't lock them up, like, come on, I dare you guys to steel this!
Hey China! Can you build a faster moon buggy?
I bet you can't! Your technology is inferior!
wtf
This type actuator, is common, in older 4WD vehicles, as with GMC ,1996 YUKON , 4WD Actuator. Several shown on TH-cam ! Mine is currently inop , and will not shift out of 2WD. Interesting video !
Hand Tool Rescue wrenches!! I've ordered mine but haven't received them yet.
That delay in the motor actuating means that it is nearly impossible for it cause a water hammer when the valve it controls closes. That delay is also useful for limiting short cycling especially since some heating system use wax motor with end switched to turn on boilers, chiller, or pumps.