A hydraulic jack uses hydraulic power. The most common form is a car jack, floor jack or garage jack, which lifts vehicles so that maintenance can be performed. In this video youtuber Maker B builds the smallest hydraulic car jack in the world. The world’s smallest hydraulic jack is a tiny hand-machined model made out of tiny pieces of iron, brass and copper.
source.image: Maker B
But here’s the kicker: It’s a real hydraulic jack with real hydraulic fluid! At 1/5th scale, it obviously isn’t as strong as a full-size jack, but it can still easily lift an impressive 24 soda cans! Switching between the lathe and mill, Maker B shows how all the parts of the jack are made from stock metal in detail, and even explains in simple terms how a hydraulic jack works in this masterpiece of a video.
A hydraulic jack uses a liquid, which is incompressible, that is forced into a cylinder by a pump plunger. Oil is used since it is self lubricating and stable. When the plunger pulls back, it draws oil out of the reservoir through a suction check valve into the pump chamber.
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When the plunger moves forward, it pushes the oil through a discharge check valve into the cylinder. The suction valve ball is within the chamber and opens with each draw of the plunger. The discharge valve ball is outside the chamber and opens when the oil is pushed into the cylinder.
