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Author Topic: Gyro-Cycle Top  (Read 4045 times)

ta0

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Gyro-Cycle Top
« on: July 05, 2011, 11:08:49 PM »
Not exactly a top, more of a gyro, although it is featured in Lourens book. There is a complete one on ebay although I think it is a little rough for the price they are asking. The nice thing is that it has a little video of the toy in action:

3797

Contrary to what the auction says, it is from England not Japan.
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johnm

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Re: Gyro-Cycle Top
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2011, 06:55:57 PM »
Here's a more modern version from the magazine MAKE where a gyroscope flywheel is harvested and mounted on a motor to make a battery powered version.

Fun with your electric gyroscope


And here is a link to a DIY to make one for yourself. 

link=http://makeprojects.com/Project/Gyrocar/88/1
« Last Edit: December 05, 2021, 10:20:05 AM by ta0 »
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ta0

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Re: Gyro-Cycle Top
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2011, 11:06:19 PM »
Good find, John!

The video mentions Brennan's monorail car. But that monorail used a gyro (actually a couple spinning in opposite directions) with the axis horizontal, instead of vertical like in that toy.  It had an ingenious mechanism to "speed up the precession" and return the monorail to vertical. Crabtree's book has several pages dedicated to it. The toy version, the "Gyro Mono Car" shown on Lourens book, appears to have the gyro vertical, like in the Gyro Cycle Top, but I would like to know for sure. A toy that had something similar to real Brennan mechanism would be really cool.
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ta0

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Re: Gyro-Cycle Top
« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2021, 10:30:15 AM »
These material supplies issues that we are having because of the pandemic are tough for industry. The track of a Gyro-Cycle top is "now only 3ft in length"  ;D





This is the current auction: https://www.ebay.com/itm/403334090521

We discussed the Gyro-Cycle top a little more on this thread: https://www.ta0.com/forum/index.php/topic,4309.msg44509.html#msg44509
« Last Edit: December 05, 2021, 10:38:27 AM by ta0 »
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Texture

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Re: Gyro-Cycle Top
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2021, 02:07:26 PM »
I'd love to get my hands on it, but the shipping is $65.00....  ::)
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ta0

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Re: Gyro-Cycle Top
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2021, 11:08:21 AM »
I'm thinking that the the extra 2 ft of steel foil for the track would have been a very minor cost and they could have just increased the price a bit. I wonder if the real reason of shortening the track was to have the Gyro-Cycle Top do more turns around it. My box is the same but they deleted "5 foot" and added the price of 5 shillings 11 pence (as there are 12 pence in one shilling, equivalent to writing $X.99  :P)

Here is an older one that was just 1 shilling:

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