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Old fashioned Mechanical Television (Bissiri version)

I am still remembering the Black&White CRT tube television.

In the early ’80 there was a little amount of televisions where the images were seen are with no colours (Red Green Blue lights), just greyish from vague black into bright white.

You are not so young to remember also this kind of TV and probably you’re born with yout fantastic OLED ultralight TV 50″ panel mounted like a poster into your dining room.

Havbe you ever wondered what is the oldest technology used on the proper TV in the format we actually know?

Let me tell you something. Yes it existed.

Do you know that a genious italian man from Sardinia patented the first TV in the World? You cannot believe but it is true.

No transistors, no tubes, no complex circuitry, no way! “Simple” mechanical parts and just the minimum available electronics used at that time.

Don’t  be scared, the mechanism to use a TV in the oldest way with mechanical parts is feasible, seriously.

I discovered this primitive television just doing a web search of some Image transmision formats (MPEG2 DVB n.d.t.) and one link in Google Images pointed at an inusual stuff.

The Mechanical Television.

What’s that?? M.E.C.H.A.N.I.C.A.L. T.E.L.E.V.I.S.I.O.N  ??????

Oh My Gosh!!!!

At first I didn’t realized what exactly it was but just a quick check  show me a suprisingly fact.

The first real complete television is done by a man originally from my beautiful Island, Sardinia.

Surprised by this fact, I serch more info.

The inventor was Augusto Bissiri, born in Seui (a little town in Sardinia) in 1879 “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Bissiri”

It is accredited as the first inventor of the Television.

What’s the point of this discussion?

Simply, moved by my curiosity I done an investigation and I found the Patent “Live Picture Prodution US1546193” filed in  1925 where the invention is described.

As Engineer I have to find solutions at problems, so Let’s create a problem.

Problem: I don’t have a mechanical TV so could I create one of this piece of history?

The answer is YES, I can.

I started thinking how to build one of this exemplar trying to follow the entire patent description without any other trick, which it will invoves CAD design for mechanical parts(probably 3d printing or tooling), Electronic parts accordingly to the patent description.

I looked at the patent and I read it line by line founding very marvelous information on it. I will describe them later during the development of the model.


Next updates soon.

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A 3D Printer customized

During these past years I’ve wondered if there is a quick way to create tiny parts for my hungry hobby of DIY.

In my past life I created a CNC milling machine, very big and made with wood and MDF parts, it is stil working as far I know but I am not using it anymore due to the heavy size to move the axis and the software to control il too old.

When I need to print something small or just few samples the subtractive milling technology is not enough for me. I need more feature.

I realized that cutting with tools, grinder and knives are not fully sustainable when you have to create complex(maybe not so complex) parts.

At that point I started thinking to buy  a 3D printer.

I looked at the online market and I bought a cheap 3D printer, a clone of “Prusa i3” in kit just to start feeling confident to use the new era of the fabrication technology.
On the June 2016 I decided to buy the first 3D printer and I started looking how to use correctly and of course how to tweak it  to increase performances to have a better quality than the stock one.

It was a very difficult process. Spent lot of time trying to setup properly the printer, the software and calibration.

Interesting to say that all the difficult part to setup the 3D printer is not the software or assemblying the kit. NO way, it is the constant calibration needed to align correctly first layers, sensors, mechanical vibrations also and a compromise between speed and quality.

And now after two years I’d like to start the next challenge. I don’t like easy tasks like using something already done and integrating on my 3D printer.

The idea is to get a 3D printer, typically a chineese printer and make on the top of it the main upgrades, mechanical, electronics and software to get a new 3D printer  that has a good quality better than before speed and robustness.

I decided to buy a second 3D printer with a metal frame and leaving the old Prusa i3-clone for a secondary upgrade or to be used as extra printer if needed to print something urgent for my new printer.

In this personal blog page I want to show the entire evolution of my 3D printer.

My goal is to invest a bit of my money within a budget to buy the parts I think I need to increase the overall performances, better quality of the printer itself and  the infinity pleasure to expose my real creativity.


The following posts on this page will show more information about the printer and the progress status.  It will not be easy I have to admit and temptation and frustation will be behind the corner but it is a challenge.