Talk:Phonomotor

A fact from Phonomotor appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 November 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the phonomotor, patented by Thomas Edison in 1878, could drill a hole in a board, powered only by the human voice?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/November.

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Phonomotor[edit]

This article originated with a reply on the Science Reference Desk to a question about converting sound energy to mechanical energy. They had such a machine on exhibit at the reconstructed Edison Menlo Park lab at Greenfield Village when I last toured the place. I found a reference which (snippet view) refers to the rotary motion being used to run a sewing machine, voice powered. "STITCH! STITCH! KEEP STITCHING DAMMIT!" Treadle powered and later electric powered machines were More conducive to domestic tranquility. "Menlo Park Reminiscences," by Francis Jehl, (writen 1937, Dover reprint 1990) (who was present at Edison's lab in the 1870'2-80's) tells on pages 180-181 of the "phonomotor." On page 180 is an illustration of it from the Scientific American (apparently July 27, 1878). It was the Sci Am reporter who said "Mr. Edison says he will have no difficulty in making the machine bore a hole through a board, but we consider such an application of the machine of very little utility, as we are familiar with voices that can accomplish that feat without the mechanical appliance." The machine used a diaphragm connected via a rubber tube to a spring, which carried a pawl that acted on a ratchet on the flywheel. Certain voice sounds could cause the flywheel to rotate "with considerable velocity." The quote from Ref Desk follows.Edison (talk) 16:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Thomas Edison in the 1870's built a device called the "Phonomotor," which collected sound energy in a horn, cause a diaphragm to vibrate, used the vibration to operate a fine gear train via a ratchet to create rotary motion. It got some press around the world, with humorous comments about the power of a mother-in-law's voice to bore a hole in a piece of wood, but had no practical application. (Maybe people lost interest because it was a "boring machine"). If you had a device which converted sound to electricity with 100% efficiency, and it had a 1 square meter collector, it would require 138dB (deafeningly loud) to power a 60 watt light bulb, per [1], which says that would require the combined voices of a million people. Edison (talk) 03:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Used to generate electricity?[edit]

Would it be possible to use something like this to generate renewable energy from naturally occurring sources of loud noise? I'm wondering if the ocean, thunderstorms, Old Faithful, etc., might be possibilities. Would such a thing be economical? Stonemason89 (talk) 02:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just off the cuff...probably not. You'd want continual noise of a predictable frequency rather than very loud momentary noises. Also, the output would be less than that of a conventional wind turbine. It's an interesting novelty, though. Wyvern (talk) 05:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]