{"id":6717,"key":"MultiMachine_project","title":"MultiMachine project","latest":{"id":1209306,"timestamp":"2025-11-28T02:01:19Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"The MultiMachine, a humanitarian open source machine tool project for\ndeveloping countries\n\nThe MultiMachine all-purpose machine tool that can be built by a\nsemi-skilled mechanic with just common hand tools. For machine\nconstruction, electricity can be replaced with \"elbow grease\" and the\nnecessary material can come from discarded vehicle parts.\n\nWhat can the MultiMachine be used for in developing countries?\n\nAGRICULTURE: Building and repairing irrigation pumps and farm implements\n\nWATER SUPPLIES: Making and repairing water pumps and water-well\ndrilling rigs.\n\nFOOD SUPPLIES: Building steel-rolling- and-bending machines for making\nfuel efficient cook stoves and other cooking equipment\n\nTRANSPORTATION: Anything from making cart axles to rebuilding vehicle\nclutch, brake, and other parts.\n\nEDUCATION: Building simple pipe-and-bar- bending machines to make\nschool furniture, providing \"hands on\" training on student-built\nMultiMachines that they take with them when they leave school.\n\nJOB CREATION: A group of specialized but easily built MultiMachines\ncan be combined to form a small, very low cost, metal working factory\nwhich could also serve as a trade school. Students could be taught a\nsingle skill on a specialized machine and be paid as a worker while\nlearning other skills that they could take elsewhere.\n\nHow can an easily built machine tool that is made from junk be \"all\npurpose\" and also accurate?\n\nPretty simple!\nIn almost every kind of machining operation, either the work piece or\nthe cutting tool turns. If enough flexibility is built into the parts\nof a machine tool involved in these functions, the resulting machine\ncan do almost every kind of machining operation that will physically\nfit on it. You may have heard of 3-in-1 machine tools -- basically a\ncombination of metal lathe, mill and drill press. The MultiMachine\nstarts there but adds many other functions. It can be a 10- in-1 (or\neven more!) machine tool that is built by using vehicle engine blocks\nin a LEGO-like fashion. The MultiMachine uses 6 unusual construction\ntechniques to build 5 very simple \"modules\" that bolt to a workout or\nbroken vehicle or industrial engine block.\nUsing engine blocks as building blocks is the first MultiMachine\nfeature. Since cylinder bores are bored parallel to each other and at\nexact right angles to the cylinder head surface, MultiMachine accuracy\nbegins at the factory where the engine block was built.\nThe second MultiMachine featture is that in the most common version of\nthe MultiMachine, one that has a roller bearing spindle, this\nprecision is maintained during construction with simple cylinder\nre-boring of the #3 cylinder to the size of the roller bearing outside\ndiameter (OD) and re-boring the #1 cylinder to fit the overarm OD. The\nbest part is that these cylinder-boring operations can be done in\nalmost any engine shop and at low cost. An engine machine shop\nprovides the most inexpensive and accurate machine work commonly done\nanywhere and guarantees that the spindle and overarm will be perfectly\naligned and at an exact right angle to the face (head surface) of the\nmain engine block that serves as the base of the machine.\nThe third MultiMachine feature is the spindle can be as simple as a\npiece of pipe made to fit the inner diameter of the bearings.\nThe fourth feature is the addition of a third bearing to the spindle.\nThe three-bearing spindle is necessary because the \"main\" spindle\nbearings just \"float\" in the cylinder bore so that the third bearing\nis needed to \"locate\" the spindle, act as a thrust bearing, and\nsupport the heavy pulley.\nThe fifth MultiMachine feature is our unique way of clamping the\nengine blocks together. It's easily built, easily adjusted, and very\naccurate.\nThe sixth feature is a concrete and steel construction technique that\nwe resurrected from old Popular Mechanics magazines. It has been used\nin industry for well over a hundred years\nAn almost no cost version of the machine can be built by using engine\nblocks originally made with cylinder \"sleeves\" and then replacing\nbearings, adjusters and pulleys with parts cast from a very strong\nzinc/aluminum alloy that can be made from vehicle salvage.\n\nThe details of the MultiMachine are available at the website address\nincluded below. Additionally, there are plans for electric welders\nbuilt from vehicle alternators, a design for an easily built\nhand-powered drill that is capable of cutting through the hardest\nsteel and an easily cast metal alloy that is almost as strong as cast\niron.\n\nPeople wanting to download the plans etc. will have to at least\ntemporarily \"join\" the Yahoo newsgroup, a task that will only take\nseconds. We regret that this is necessary but it is the only way for\nus to handle the already huge number of downloads of the 80 page \"How\nto Build a MultiMachine\" book.\n\nFeel free to contact me directly for more information or visit our\ngroup site here:\n\nhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/multimachine/\n\nPat Delany\nPalestine, Texas\nrigmatch@yahoo. com\n\n{{Categories needed}}\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n}}"}