View source for Edison's Voice-Driven Sewing Machine

== Extraordinary Inventions ==
''Bizarre ideas that never got off the ground by Tim Healey.  

'''Edison's voice-driven sewing machine
[[File:Edisona.jpg|300px|thumb|left]]

Thomas Alva Edison was the most prolific inventor of all time.  Besides
being responsible for the electric light, he also pioneered motion
pictures, the gramophone and a host of other devices.  The great
inventor lodged almost 1,300 patent applications - so small wonder that
occasionally a flash of inspiration fizzled out in failure. 


One of his oddest inventions was a voice-driven sewing machine.  A woman
friend had complained that pedalling a conventional device by foot was a
tiresome business.  Responding to the challenge, he proposed a sewing
machine which worked by converting sound waves into power.[[File:Edisonb.jpg|300px|thumb|right]]


Edison had already discovered that the human voice has considerable
potential energy, and had devised what he called a phonomotor to harness
it.  A vibrating diaphragm was mounted in a mouthpiece connected via
spring and shaft to a flywheel.  When the user spoke, the flywheel rotated.
[[File:Edisonc.jpg|300px|thumb|center]]


Amazingly, the apparatus worked after a fashion.  The trouble was that
the user had to bellow long, loud and at an unwavering pitch into the
mouthpiece.  And this was very much more exhausting than merely
pedalling.  The extraordinary contraption disappeared into the footnotes
of scientific history - along with a voice-driven power drill which
Edison also envisaged.
[[File:Pat210767edisonvoiceengine1.jpg|300px|thumb|left]]
[[File:Pat210767edisonvoiceengine2.jpg|300px|thumb|right]]


Edison's patent of December 10, 1878 for a Vocal Engine