Amazon.com description: Product Description: Your one-stop idea guide for time-saving, ready-to-use mechanical component designs! Whatever you design, engineer, or invent--from locomotives to tape recorders--if your application requires components that MOVE GRIP or LOCK... you need this book. An unmatched compilation of proven design ideas and solutions, Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook--describes and illlustrates over 1,700 tested mechanisms, linkages, cams, variable-speed drives, gears, clutches, brakes, belts, glexures, chucks, clamps, and springs you can use is--or modify to meet your needs; shows you how these components combine successfully with electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, optical, thermal, or photoelectric devices--to let you creat integrated designs that perform a range of complex tasks; includes key design curves, graphs, tables, and equations for designing a variety of components--geared five-bar mechanisms, internal, and external Geneva wheels, crank-and-rocker links, snap-action toggles, angular-motion and curvilinear-motion feeder mechanisms, slider cranks, ratchet wheels, and more; organizes all mechanisms and devices by application and principle of operation--to give you fast on-the-job access; Carefully compiled from major product-design design-engineering publications and from other authoritative sources, Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook is the most extensive, thoroughly researched ready reference of its kind. It's the place to turn first for the time-saving approaches that can get your design started off right... break you out of conceptual logjams... suggest more cost-efficient alternatives... or just fine-tune a good design to make it even better.