It is always fun to see how everyday household items work. Very often, these ‘simple’ devices reveal ingenious engineering designs, like in the case of a nice animation of how rotating desktop fan works.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
When I was very young I would disassemble (clumsily) things like this to figure out how they worked and sometimes I even got them back together so they worked. My parents were not amused:-)
That’s a very simple clutch mechanism; the one in a car is a bit stronger but it’s basically the same idea.
There should be a disengageable clutch so it stops cycling when the shit hits it.
Of course modern oscillating fans only work until the little plastic gears warp, then they wobble indecisively on the spot making plaintive pocking sounds like an elderly chook. Best left unclutched.