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.
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
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!
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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)
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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My Honda lawnmower uses a wax motor to open the choke plate in the carb. My Whirlpool duet he4t front loader washer has wax motor in the door latch release mechanism. Nice vid. Thanks. Keep your stick on the ice.
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).
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
"It grew about 2mm"
That one hits a bit too close to home.
Lmaooooo
Appy ice to the burned area
Sad, so sad.
"This thing's gonna need some more champagne and caviar to get into her. It's a fancy uptown rig." LMAO
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 :)
Easy, glue the panels onto sun flowers. 😂😂
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
Wow. Amazing how sane the comments are in here. You guys rock.
Speak for yourself, Earthling . . .
I had 3 double Bourbons and this all made so much more sense.
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.
Waxuator
chris mutter brillliant
Totally underrated comment!
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.
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
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 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
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.
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?
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.
Happy fathers Day to you AvE, and to all the viewers here on your channel! God bless all of you!
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
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.
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! 😀
Oh god, I’m singing smooth actuator in my head, now you are
Haven't thought of wax hands for 55 years. Thanks for bringing back that memory 👍
Some old skookum 4x4 actuators we're just wax actuators! Great vid AvE! They are the best!
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!
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
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'm seeing Opinel knives everywhere these days. Great simple folders
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
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...
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.
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.
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
I love the OSHA approved plug there in the old “kill-a-watt”
Without question this is the best channel on TH-cam!!!
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
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
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.
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
thats solar panel idea is brilliant dude one of the smartest things i have ever heard
Danfoss, pretty good central heating circulation
pumps, and fridge compressors.
How 'bout the stamina? Are there any dangers if it lasts more than 4 hours?
Love the hand tool rescue adj. wrenches! Hopefully I can get mine soon too
The simplicity of it is amazing for what it can and will do
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?
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)
It's for a normally closed valve .. thank you for showing me this. I install these quiet offten
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.
time for a race between paraffin and bi-metallic strip.
Also used in aerospace, replacing explosive actuators, boom!
I like the way you inserted wires into outlet, what matters is, if it works it fits.
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.
“ ahh the little nub came out” LMAO!
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...
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 use the Danfoss's quite a bit in old homes with radiators to zone rooms, used as a themostat on monoflow systems
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.
its like opening a dyson vacuum and getting a lg motor
As a proud Dane, seeing Danish company danfoss on your desk lifts my mood.. about 2 mm. 😊 love the vids!
Came over from Real Engineering: your channel is awesome!
Didn't you get yelled at for going out to play with your Sunday School shirt on . LOL
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.
Used for years in hydronic heating systems as a zone control. Old tech, but quite reliable and trouble free.
I always love your colorful commentary
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?
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.
Thank you for your videos I've learned so much watching them just because you make things so simple
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.
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.
0:52 To me, it looks more like a lint roller, like what you'd use after your dog sleeps on the couch.
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.
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.
fascinating technology I had no idea existed; paraffin is non-polar so it cant be microwaved
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.
My Honda lawnmower uses a wax motor to open the choke plate in the carb. My Whirlpool duet he4t front loader washer has wax motor in the door latch release mechanism.
Nice vid. Thanks. Keep your stick on the ice.
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).
These are usually what delays the washing machine door opening after the power goes off.
"Wax motors" also found use in car cooling systems to regulate the flow of water between the engine and 'radiator'.
Nice to see the Opinel knife on the bench, I’ve been using them for over 30 years.
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!
The copper content could be used for doping the reaction times, since copper has insane heat retention
DOM. Drawn Over Mandrel
How are those TShirts doin?
Genius idea on the solar tracking. as usual.
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.
Same way a thermostat in a car works.
Well, guess it's not bedtime yet.
Very nice choice with the opinel
There are a lot of wax motors in washing machines door lock assemblies too. Not many in newer stuff but lots of the older appliances used these too.
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.
plastic almost always a pain right in the ass when you wanted something serviceable
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.
Well said Daniel, I was a steamfitter for 30 years and made a lot of overtime in office buildings installing replacements.
The old metal danfoss model was quie unreliable as well. Ran into a lot of them that had wax leaking out and wouldn't open.
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.
I think you'll find if you look closely enough that plants are solar panels already
And batteries!
My old Maytag front loading washing machine used a wax motor to actuate the door lock. Took a couple of minutes to cool down and let the door unlock.
You have some really good ideas my friend.
But this is one of the best I've seen 😘
My head is spinning 😁
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.
I wonder if the copper in the paraffin is used to modify the hysteresis? Maybe plain paraffin cools too slow?
Ben Madison some use aluminum. Could be due to modify (like what you said), could be used for cost.
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.
For certain applications maybe the heat transfer of aluminum is sufficient? And reduces the build cost?
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)
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.
Hand Tool Rescue wrenches!! I've ordered mine but haven't received them yet.
early electric 4wd actuators used to use this tech. hit the switch and wait 3 mins!
James Bradley everyone I’ve seen have been vacuum or electronically controlled.
96 tahoe has it.. it fails mostly and gets replaced with a aftermarket normal style
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.
Love those hand tool rescue wrenches. Mine are still in the mail
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.