Gimme that old time technology!

this isn't old, but it fits your other criteria:

kid powered water pump

Well, there is a movement towards sustainable design, especially with items destined for use in un-electrified portions of the world. Some of my college friends worked on designing a laptop charger that was powered by a pedal. Although it wasnt too sucessful, it did highlight the characteristics of the system that needed more work. Although you talked about non-electric systems, these days human powered machines are used to generate electricity.

A co-worker of mine gave me the idea of a human powered refrigerator. Although the amount of power needed for such a design would require a bit of legwork through a bicycle powered dynamo, its completely possible. Other friends of mine did a senior design project around creating a battery powered 1.8 cubic foot refrigerator. It did work, and shows that for many of these things, more basic technology needs to be developed to make them work as wanted IE better batteries,passive cooling etc.

Here's a human powered scroll saw.

There's a lot of this sort of thing at www.makezine.com.

just google:

human powered site:www.makezine.com

or substitute pedal powered, or treadle powered in the search.

just for grins and since I have so many other projects going, I was developing a pedal powered, modular sand bag conveyor. For set up, and use and quick deployment of sand bags in flood prone areas.

I have often wished a portable pedal powered charging station for campouts and recreation.

cr3

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM//museum.htm is a delightful site that will entertain for hours! Happy reading!

Wow about the pole lathe, one of the oldest production machines.

http://www.pbs.org/wws/schedule/22season.html

Once worked in a fan belt manufacturing plant in Bulawayo all the belts were hand built and then cured it was something to watch.

Does a 3 tier oared 2000 year old warship qualify?

Thanks to all, so far, who have helped me out. The warship is going to be a little out of my league, but what a concept. If we could get all the nations to agree to using only human powered battlecraft, there would be a lot more peace on the seas.

Thanks, bhanhiii, for the pdf of the scrollsaw. Do you know if there is a part 2 of this? At the end, the author says there will be. I will try to find out from him.

My grandmother and mother both had treadle sewing machines. My grandmother actually used hers quite often, my mother mostly had hers as a beautiful piece of antique furniture. You can still buy brand new treadle sewing machines from outlets aimed at the Amish population. I have actually tried out a springpole lathe and boy is it hard to stay coordinated. Thinking about treadling and cutting at the same time is tough.

Thanks again for all of the submissions. Don't stop now if you have any more thoughts or information.

Another one that comes to mind is the foot powered pottery wheel. And the foot powered pipe organ.

I have an antique hand powered sock making machine that makes perfect socks one size smaller than my feet. It is really an ingenuous device.

My wife has a hand powered carding tool for turning wool into sheets of loose cleaned wool and an ergonomic spinning wheel that is foot powered and several large hand looms. All human powered. I used to have a bicycle frame turned into a scroll saw but it was not well made. I used it to make kids wooden puzzles at flea markets for a while but it was not a money maker with all the down time for repair.

Technology for a "new time",when we get real about 'carbon footprint' effect.

The 'clue' I have deduced is to have two pedallers,with cranks out-of-phase by 90*,so that the TDC//BDC 'dead spot' is eliminated::the operators take turns on a powerstroke,like a 4-cyl engine [with cranks out of phase].

I have developed this as the power input for an AXIAL FLOW TURBINE PUMP,which has a constant torque requirement [resistance];I found that with one man input the action was awkward,frustrating,difficult,pulsating,varying RPM,leading to loss of performance & operator fatigue.

So two beams,the top one with seats & the lower with two crank-axles,with bike-chain on two identical chain-wheels//cranks @ right angles. The front axle has a big-chainwheel [100T ,4 dm,.4m dia],the chain goes to a cluster of sprokets [14-18T]mounted on an angle-grinder gearbox [1:3 ratio],where the disc was,the output shaft[armature] is the [vertical] pump shaft,giving overall ratio of

100/14 X3 = 21:1 ie.70RPM input gets 1500RPM impeller speed~

enough for a 12cm imp to lift a ton of water 2m up in a minute.

There are many other features in the design to adapt it for standing on uneven surfaces in water & to adapt to a variety of conditions & circumstances.

Please let us talk "METRIC" here;no more inches/gallons::in this country we moved on decades ago,you can too!

This design is unique,new,a gift to individuals & groups making it for their benefit::I expect a share of the profits from those making it commercially.It is my "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY",respect that please.Revealed here to you my 'peers',cognisant of tech such as this.It is simple mech eng,created with hydrodynamic experience & skill to optimise the SIZES / SHAPES / RPM /RATIOS /IMPELLER /ERGONOMICS to get HIGH EFFEICENCY PERFORMANCE. Currently I have several variants proving the concept works even better than I origionally anticipated,when I was stuck in a sinking boat thinking "There must be a better way" to move several tons of water at a time.

The ihpva.org > forums > water>challenge site has more & onetonpump.com has oictures :

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.So throw off the bowlines.Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.Explore.Dream.Discover." ~~[Mark Twain}