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Leonardo's Incredible Machines

Johnny Pneumatic

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Last year I was watching a show on The Science Channel called 'Leonardo's Incredible Machines'. On the show they built some of the devices that Leo designed. Such as his parachute, one of the crank powered machines, a glider, the long snorkle dive suit etc. Anyway, one of the ones that I found most interesting was the dive suit. It consisted of a leather suit, glass eye pieces, bamboo snorkles and leather joints between the bamboo sections with springs inside. I'd seen the idea years ago - when I was a child - and thought it interesting, but knew it wouldn't work as I saw it drawn. Because human lungs aren't strong enough to pull air down that far. What I didn't know until the show is that may not be the way Leo had it designed. What they figured out on the show is that his dive suit could have been ment to get the air down the tube via pulling on a rope attached to the odd floating device on the surface. The suit they made according to that idea actually worked. The guy was around thirty feet down and breathing well. Does anybody know anything on exactly how this worked? In short, how can I make one, but with modern materials?
 
Something that could work by pull rope would be a bellows similar to the old pipe organ style on a raft arrangement with spring (or counterweight) operated intake stroke and pull-rope powerstroke. Bellows and check valves of wood and leather.

HTH

Dave
 
CaveDave said:
Something that could work by pull rope would be a bellows similar to the old pipe organ style on a raft arrangement with spring (or counterweight) operated intake stroke and pull-rope powerstroke. Bellows and check valves of wood and leather.

HTH

Dave
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Yeah.
However the thing on the show worked it was solid state. It looked just like the drawing I linked to, except they put a few holes into it that Leo left off the drawing, likely to prevent his idea from being stolen in the days before patent rights. Leo did the same with some of his other drawings - putting flaws in them. He certainly wasn't dumb enough to draw gearing in one of his human-powered machines that wouldn't work by accident, but he did. What's odd is I can hardly find anything online about that this show even existed. It's original run was in '04 on the Science Channel and next to that there's zip online about it that I can find. Arrrrgh, I wish I had the show on DVD! But it's not sold on that either.
 
I saw this show (or one just like it) just recently. They built some of his devices and models of others. I'm thinking it was on the History Channel just a week or so ago.
 
Johnny Pneumatic said:
Yeah.
However the thing on the show worked it was solid state. It looked just like the drawing I linked to, except they put a few holes into it that Leo left off the drawing, likely to prevent his idea from being stolen in the days before patent rights. Leo did the same with some of his other drawings - putting flaws in them. He certainly wasn't dumb enough to draw gearing in one of his human-powered machines that wouldn't work by accident, but he did. What's odd is I can hardly find anything online about that this show even existed. It's original run was in '04 on the Science Channel and next to that there's zip online about it that I can find. Arrrrgh, I wish I had the show on DVD! But it's not sold on that either.
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OK, then, how about the bell-shaped float being open-bottomed, ring-like float to raise it high in the water, atmospheric intake flap valve, flap valve exhaust to diver's pipe, pull rope yoked to submerge the "bell" evenly, water surface acting as a "piston" inside "bell" compressing air into pipe?

Find a flaw, I'll try to ffix it.:)

Cheers,
Dave
 
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CaveDave said:
OK, then, how about the bell-shaped float being open-bottomed, ring-like float to raise it high in the water, atmospheric intake flap valve, flap valve exhaust to diver's pipe, pull rope yoked to submerge the "bell" evenly, water surface acting as a "piston" inside "bell" compressing air into pipe?

Find a flaw, I'll try to ffix it.:)

Cheers,
Dave
Click to expand...

Sounds good. but why have the intake on the bottom, just have a float that closes a valve at the top as the bell lowers.



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DrCron said:
Sounds good. but why have the intake on the bottom, just have a float that closes a valve at the top as the bell lowers.
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Did you think I said that, or was that a detail I missed in the drawing?

I assure I did not visualise any valve on the bottom (of the bell),
OK, then, how about the bell-shaped float being open-bottomed, ring-like float to raise it high in the water, atmospheric intake flap valve, flap valve exhaust to diver's pipe, pull rope yoked to submerge the "bell" evenly, water surface acting as a "piston" inside "bell" compressing air into pipe?
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Only that it be open to the water.
The valves I envision would be near the apex of the bell (though nothing requires them to be precisely there, as long as the pipes open into the upper area); the function of the bell's open bottom would be to admit the water "piston" for compressing the air charge.

Was my somewhat abbreviated description so unclear? I intended the comma-delimiters to separate the distinct features (maybe a bullet- list would have been more appropriate) rather than to imply some positional order.

I apologise for substituting brevity for clarity: I wish I had a quick and easy drawing/drafting program.:)

Cheers,
Dave
 
I saw that the series is being rerun on Discovery Europe and noticed that it's actually called "Leonardo's Dream Machines". That should make Google searches a bit easier.
 
I don't understand why everyone gives so much lee-way in regards to Leonardos drawings. "If you flip this section 180 degrees and correct the design here and here it will fly!" Of course we know how to correct the design since we have built numerous prototypes and learned it the hard way. His discoveries in for instance anatomy are impressive enough that we do not have to give him demi-god genius status.
 
Vitnir said:
I don't understand why everyone gives so much lee-way in regards to Leonardos drawings. "If you flip this section 180 degrees and correct the design here and here it will fly!" Of course we know how to correct the design since we have built numerous prototypes and learned it the hard way. His discoveries in for instance anatomy are impressive enough that we do not have to give him demi-god genius status.
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I agree, but when talking about other things he drew incorrectly that he knew better (such as geared systems) there's not a good way to explain it other than he did it on purpose.
 
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