These two Wikipedia articles might be interesting to you.

Ball-and-disk_integrator
Differential_analyser

Thanks, I have run across those in the near past. Before this became an area of focused interest. I will look at them again.

 

A steam engine governor is some kind of controller.
View attachment 264684

That is a purely proportional controller if I'm not mistaken. I think it could be easily tied in with the ball and disk integrator that @Yaakov posted for a PI controller.

 

Good point! I should educate myself before trashing them out of ignorance.
Four of those articles are mine!
Looks like today is trash day.

 

A steam engine governor is some kind of controller.

The tractor engines on our home farm when I was a kid used a mechanical governor which I think was some variation of a flyball type (of course I'm sure they are now part of the electronic engine management computer).
I remember there was one brand of tractor (Allis-Chalmers I think) had a fast acting governor (high loop gain) that was too lightly damped, since when the engine load was suddenly released (such as stepping on the clutch) the engine speed would hunt up and down for several seconds afterward until settling to a steady speed.

 

My laboratory partner in high school science class bet me that I could not publish an article on any topic
on the internet and if I did she would give me a kiss on the lips.That was my motivation. My articles on Wikipedia are trash, total plagiarism.I cringe every time I see them cited on the internet.
I have tried to get them removed, but their grandfathered in. That the only reason I so disrespectfully hijacked this thread. My AAC account should be deleted.

 

My laboratory partner in high school science class bet me that I could not publish an article on any topic
on the internet and if I did she would give me a kiss on the lips.That was my motivation. My articles on Wikipedia are trash, total plagiarism.I cringe every time I see them cited on the internet.
I have tried to get them removed, but their grandfathered in. That the only reason I so disrespectfully hijacked this thread. My AAC account should be deleted.

I'm sorry but your anecdote isn't convincing. When I asked for an example I meant a link to an article not a story about one.

Your facile dismissal of the hundreds of experts and the thousands of hours they volunteer to elucidate the specializations they've devoted their lives to, for our for our benefit, is not only an insult to them but it is a disservice to anyone who might read and believe it.

This is off-topic in this thread so I will make this my last post though I hope it is clear why I felt compelled to challenge that bald and unsupported assertion.

I apologize to the TS and the other members participating in the thread for the digression.

 

A plumb bob could be classified as a machine maybe more so than a tool. When hung it will balance itself from the feedback of its own motion as a pendulum. Once at rest it will indicate the nadir or straight down at the coordinates of the bob. Pretty cool for just a weight on a string.

 

The tractor engines on our home farm when I was a kid used a mechanical governor which I think was some variation of a flyball type (of course I'm sure they are now part of the electronic engine management computer).
I remember there was one brand of tractor (Allis-Chalmers I think) had a fast acting governor (high loop gain) that was too lightly damped, since when the engine load was suddenly released (such as stepping on the clutch) the engine speed would hunt up and down for several seconds afterward until settling to a steady speed.

My pressure washer does this and it occurs to me that I never got curious enough to find out exactly why, and that's out of character for me. It's always just been good enough that it sprayed water when I needed it to. I assumed it was sensing output pressure and when you stop spraying, flow stops so pressure spikes, so the engine slows which causes pressure to drop, which causes the engine to speed back up which causes another spike, and so on. But I don't know that, and I don't remember seeing any linkage or any kind of sensing apparatus between the pump and engine.

 

Another harmonic analyzer. I find these devices fascinating.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine

 

My laboratory partner in high school science class bet me that I could not publish an article on any topic
on the internet and if I did she would give me a kiss on the lips.That was my motivation. My articles on Wikipedia are trash, total plagiarism.I cringe every time I see them cited on the internet.
I have tried to get them removed, but their grandfathered in. That the only reason I so disrespectfully hijacked this thread. My AAC account should be deleted.

Did she finally?