Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #07295
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:27:17 -0500
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: aquabots - 'sealed' motor
Wouldn't it be a lot more efficient to drive a bimetalic strip attached to
a bellows?
Store up power, then activate the ballast bladder, change depth, then as the
strip recovers you return to your trimed depth.
Asking the heat of a light bulb to change the density of a gas sufficiently to
displace enough water to matter is not an efficient process.
Benjamin Edward Hitchcock wrote:
> ----- Forwarded message from Wilf Rigter -----
> Using a light bulb to change buoyancy won't work since buoyancy is affected
> by the displacement of water with a volume of lower density. So the rigid
> glass bulb is the problem. A bladder filled with an incompressible substance
> which changes volume and density as it is heated should work.
>
> alright!
>
> ---
>
> I love it! Using a lightbulb to change buoyancy! Fantastic! There is a
> way to do this - put a partially inflated balloon around the lightbulb.
> This will make the whole assembly watertight as well, and make a cool
> coloured 'glow' when the device is on. Maybe you could use a magnetic
> coil on the bottom of the cylinder attached to the mains, and have another
> coil on the bottom of your bot. This would charge up a capacitor, and
> coupled to a solar engine would make the bot sit on the bottom chanrging
> up, then light its 'engine' and drift up to the stars!
>
> VERY elegant.
>
> Nice idea!
>
> Ben
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