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A calculator that uses no electricity. A calculator that is mechanical throughout. Gears, levers, slides, linkages, and cranks. No silicon or digital displays. No need for electricity or button pushing. Just a manual and some elbow grease is all it will take to use this calculator. That said, mechanical calculators are far from simple machines. It is an incremental process to build one. Like learning math itself, the calculator must learn to count before it can add and subtract. It must learn to add and subtract before it can multiply and divide. Each function adds more complexity, more parts, and more failure points.
This video inspired me to make a mechanical calculator. I am not copying the design presented in the video, though the mechanisms will be similar. I will be predominantly using 3D printing to make my calculator, so, hopefully, the end product will be more compact and marginally more portable.
Counter 1.MOVThe First Counter
The First Counter
This is a mechanical counter that counts from 00 to 99. It uses three gears. The two gears with numbers are identical. The gear at the top has the same number of teeth as the others on it's top half. It has only one tooth on its bottom half. Therefore, the gear moves the leftmost (tens place) gear one digit every time the rightmost (ones place) gear makes a complete revolution. The counter counts from the number displayed by the topmost digit of each gear. Each gear has an eleven-pointed-star-shaped feature on the underside. This feature allows a spring (lever-looking parts at bottom middle of the counter) to index the gear and ensures the displayed digits are unambiguous (i.e., 1 or 2 is displayed, not somewhere between 1 and 2).
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