Author Topic: Secret life of machines (Read 7583 times)

Scott · « **on:** October 22, 2000, 08:44:00 pm »

Anyone else seen the BBC show"The Secret Life of Machines"?The Discovery Channel(I think) aired it a few years ago. Anyhoos, on one episode, he created several homemade bulbs from bottles,fired them up,and left them on. Four days later, they were still going. I forgot what he used for a filament,but the things lasted longer than the host expected.

migette · « **Reply #1 on:** October 23, 2000, 06:17:00 pm »

Hi Scott,
That series was on here several years ago did remember the one on lighting dont know what the filaments were but they may have been bamboo carbonised only a thought, Thanks for the e-mails and comments have you seen the other Secret Life programs, nice to know there being shown in America. Best wishes Peter.

James · « **Reply #2 on:** October 24, 2000, 06:20:00 am »

Hi Scott

I did see that series when it was first shown in the UK as well and taped it so if anyone is interested in a copy let me know. Its PAL format but many videos over here play PAL and NTSC so if yours are the same in USA it should work fine.

As far as I remember, the filaments were made from graphite rods extracted from ordinary pencils. They passed a high current through an intact pencil to spectacularly burn off all the wood and reveal the carbon rod inside. Those were then lit up at higher brightness inside a partially evacuated milk bottle. I seem to recall that they also made a fluorescent milk bottle which worked really well! That just had a carbon arc inside the bottle which was coated with phosphor on the inside.

I don't know if they ever show UK Open Univeristy lectures in the USA, but another good programme to look out for is "Strike A Light" which forms part of the Materials Engineering lecture course. In that they visited the Osram, Thorn EMI and Lamp Metals Ltd factories in the UK and give a really detailed presentation on the manufacture of tungsten wire, incandescent lamps and the high pressure sodium arc tube.

Scott · « **Reply #3 on:** October 24, 2000, 09:17:00 pm »

It's been a while since I've seen "The Secret Life of Machines",but I enjoyed the show-it always seemed like the hosts were having fun at it,as well. PAL machines here are rare,and expensive if you can find them. I have seen multiple format machines,but they were 1000+ dollars.
The only other British science series I remember seeing was "Connections".

Bob Masters · « **Reply #4 on:** October 25, 2000, 10:37:00 am »

I used to really enjoy watching those shows but they stopped airing them on the Discovery channel years ago. Now they have a bunch of home interior shows that aren't worth 10 cents combined.