Customer Reviews

Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors (4-Volume Set) (Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers & Inventors)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This set of 4 volumes are chock-full of information on various mechanical devices, and how they work. The text explains how each device works, along with illustrations that point out what each part does in the mechanism. Since the all of the mechanisms are from real-world applications, the designs are proven. The organization of the 4 volumes are similar, for example: Cams & Special Cam Designs/Intermittent Motions.../Tripping or Stopping Mechanisms/Feeding Mechanisms/Etc. Also, the fact that the text is broken into 4 volumes, Its very convienient to browse through. I recommend this set to the beginner, up to the advanced application engineer, because most people don't have the time to re-invent the wheel.

Have you ever read a US Patent all the way through? That's what this book consists of -- a group of interesting and ingenious patents. Ie: very text based and very tediously written. For example: "Shaft A rotates within the proximity of cam B in a concentric manner producing a force C which exposes gate D to a level of thrust.... and so on"

While you don't have to be an engineer to read a patent document (but it helps), it's very time consuming to read through them and gain a summary understanding of how the device/mechanism is supposed to work. Patent lawyers write patents to protect the invention and not to make it easy for the average person to understand them.

I was hoping that this book was more descriptive with better diagrams than just a collection patents. A better title would've been "Ingenious Mechanisms - A collection of patents for Designers and Inventors".

I was pretty dissapointed in this set. Perhaps it's better suited for an engineer. I bought 507 Mechanisms at the same time and found it to be much easier to understand even though it was originally published over 100 years ago. I sent this set back b/c it just wasn't worth the money to me.

These books are very comprehensive. There are lots of multi-component mechanisms described in great detail for mechanically inclined people.

The machines depicted are of an historical nature. I don't see this as a shortcoming, however. Mechanisms of the sort found in these volumes were state-of-the-art at one time. There were no electronic sensors and computer controls at the turn of the last century. Everything had to work -- and had to work mechanically. The mechanisms explained in these volumes are a testament to a certain real-world ingenuity that most of us can't comprehend until we read books like these.

I expected something truely ingenious that would leave me enlightened after buying and reading this set. They are very interesting, but I'm not so sure that ingenious is the right word, Clever maybe.. Just remember this was copyrighted in 1930, it's old technology now. It is a good basis to build upon, and you might get some ideas you hadn't seen before. I'm glad to have them.

When the UPS man delivered this I was shocked at how huge it is! Four big volumes packed with the most incredible and interesting mechanisms in the world. I have read the first book from cover to cover and I have thumbed through the rest. I love this kind of stuff so these are the perfect books for me. If you are also into cool mechanical contraptions, you will also love these books!

This is a nicely bound set of books. I'm not sure it's really that usefull. Information is not presented in an way that you can directly use it, but it does cover lots of ideas, has pictures, and could lead you to something you could then further research and use. The text appears to have been taken directly from the patent office documents, so it's a dry read filled with legalese with everything over explained in such a way as to decrease clarity not to mention any practical applications.

As far as the Ingenious part goes...well, not so much. There are some clever items however. In all, I'd say it was a little over-sold and not as good as I was expecting. That being said, however, I am not inclined to return it. It may actually be of some use to me one day, and if not it is fairly entertaining to browse.

More like a list of repeated patents. It helps to get some ideas in the design process.

Great set of books, however three of the books were from one printing and the fourth was from another year entirely. If it is important to you make sure the seller states all four books are from the same year or printing. I was surprized when I received my set and one of them was from a different year and had a different cover. Equally surprizing were the comments from associates when they saw the mismatched book in the engineering library.

My husband is an engineer and inventor. He loves these books. Full of great illustrations and ideas.