Notes on Mechanical Devices for the Electronics Experimenter

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Summary

I got this book because I don't know much about mechanical engineering and this seemed like a great intro.

The introduction says it's meant for amateur experimenters to get a good foundation for experimentation and measurement and build by designing<=>building<=>testing.

Perfect!

Ch 1: Basic mechanical principles

Fundamental Qualities

We need to define some fundamentals before getting to the interesting stuff. Let's power through it.

There's 3 fundamental qualities that makes up reality, physics-wise: 1. Length - was once defined by a metal rod. Now it's defined by the speed of light. 2. Time - Once defined by a fraction of a day in 1900. Now it's defined by periods of radiation from a cesium atom. 3. Mass/Weight - Mass is constant, but weight is "mass * the-acceleration-of-gravity". In any case, for us it's the same.

Notably, here's a few units of mass:

  • kilogram - kg -- 2.204 pound-mass
  • pound-mass - lbm -- 0.4536 kg
  • slug - slug -- 32.174 pound-mass

Yes, we're just treating pounds as a mass by calling it pound-mass.

There's also these other relevant units of reality:

  • Electric Current - force generated between two conductors at some length, measured in "ampere"
  • Luminous Intensity - light-ness, measured in "candela"
  • Temperature - measured in "kelvin" as well as F and C.