>Not in "FWIW" but I remember stories of someone building an air compressor
>out of an old stereo turntable - maybe one of the "old timers" will know
>more about this.
Effie worked at Macquarie Uni in the olden days, and they made some
use of pump which ran on a linear (circular?) induction motor driving 2
little pistons, so there was this 15cm metal disk driving these little
pistons. Great to watch but as I recall very inefficient. Anyone else
remember these?
>I've toyed with the idea, in my "low-tech" fantasies, of rigging a windmill
>to pump air into a "gasometer" arrangement (one drum inside another, filled
>with water to displace the air and create a seal) so as to provide an even
>flow... don't worry if your respective mailers mangle this crude ASCII, it's
>not that practical anyhow! ;)
Not so impractical Andrew. If you can put a windmill up. I can see
our council letting us whip up a nice big one ;-). I'm pretty sure the New
Alchemy Institute or one of the other very hairy person's groups in the US
has done just that using Savonius rotors. I'll have a look in my pile of
paper and see if I can find it.
Chris Howe