The Spanish Knight

This model of a Spanish knight jousting on his horse was designed by Andreas Konkoly and was built from instructions given by Colin Hoare in the February 2012 issue of the Runnymede Meccano Guild Magazine.

The horse gallops on the spot, its tail moves as if caught by the wind, and the whole model rotates upon a turntable.

The Spanish knight

The knight close-up

While the horse and knight generally follow Andreas’ original design, I redesigned the turntable enclosure to be more compact and to incorporate an electric motor in place of the original clockwork motor.

The motor, gearing and guide wheels inside the turntable enclosure

The turntable fits on top of the enclosure and rotates via a gear that engages with a pinion inside the enclosure.

The underside of the turntable

The horse rests upon two static rods mounted on the turntable, and its gearing is driven via a pinion on the centre rod (not shown) engaging with a contrate wheel.

The turntable resting upon the turntable enclosure

The horse

Coin operation

By 2017 the turntable enclosure’s plastic plates had cracked beyond repair, so I replaced them with new flexible plates.

I also added a coin slot to the turntable enclosure which accepts any coin and activates the motor on a one minute timer implemented using a 555 monostable circuit.

The motor requires only 60mA to run, so it is driven directly from the 555 output.

The Spanish knight with a coin slot built into the turntable enclosure