Member postings for Alan Wood 4

I have loaded Fusion 360 as a CAD tool after reading recommendations on the forums.

In a past life I had some experience on Alibre Design when it was just beginning and wasn't an arm and leg so there is a vague familiarity with the concepts.

Fusion is clearly more advanced than Alibre was in those dark days and I am enjoying learning albeit slowly. I do miss not having a fat 'how to' manual as a reference however.

There are various resources on the Fusion site and via the net and all are adding to my knowledge but I wonder if other users have favourite learning tutorials or resources that they can recommend ?

While in gainful employment we changed out all our standard fittings with LED tubes. The fittings were four tube standard suspended ceiling grid matrix. This involved rewiring the fittings of some 450 tubes. Resulting light difference was stunning to the point of retina damage. Given this was some 5 years ago in the early days of LED tubes we did get financial support and the supplier got a major order and a good publicity story. Now retired I have replaced my lamps both in the UK and French properties with LED equivalents, mostly from CPC or from LED Hut. France has been a bit slower to catch up on offerings but is now pretty much cost equivalent for the same Lumen output.

In the workshop I now use standard gooseneck lamps modified for LED lamps, have Angel Eyes on both the mill and the drill press and have LED strip lights overhead and undershelving down lighters. Indoor 'management' used to complain about the heat from the GU10 overheads in the kitchen but now enjoys equally bright LED equivalents and seems less flustered.

I have been caught out on one issue. I bought some LED 'drop in replacement' tubes and given my previous experience I dived straight in and modified the fittings for direct feed of the AC by removing the ballast and starter. I blew the tubes as a result. It seems that the drop in replacement types depend on the ballast to load the inverters in the tubes. Beware of the difference. The DIR ones are also less efficient because of the ballast losses.

One other issue that needs to be watched is RFI. Some lower cost lamps while showing a CE mark do radiate significant RFI. If being a radio amateur is one of your other pastimes, you might find the noise floor on the HF bands is no longer conducive to hearing weak DX.

Rigel products are excellent both scopes and spectrum analysers but again not as low cost as Pico.

My understanding was that brass already contains copper so why would you pre-plate with copper ?

If this has been covered before I apologise.

I have a project in brass that I wanted to nickel plate to improve the looks. I bought a bright nickel kit from Gateros and with some trepidation set about experimenting with it.

The kit has excellent notes and contents with it and comes with sufficient material to make up a 5 litre bath with a matching number of nickel anodes. I didn't need a 5 litre size bath so I mixed the full bath quantity and then used this to fill a larger kilner jar into which I dangled two nickel anodes on the platinum wire provided. I made a totally over engineered rig to suspend the anodes and the parts but that is another story.

The kit also contains an acid pickle mix, again for 5 litres worth. I repeated the process and sub filled a kilner.

The excess mixes have gone into storage for later topping up.

I have a 5 litre ultrasonic cleaner with heater and timer. I set the heat to 40 degrees and put the pickle kilner in the tank surrounded by water. I also added a second kilner filled with dilute Cussons Clock Cleaning fluid.

The plating kilner sat separate to the tank connected to my bench power supply. Initially I did have the plating jar in the ultrasonic bath so the fluid was kept warm but the ultrasound vibrations caused erratic connectivity to the copper wire connections to the parts being plated. In the end to maintain a warm temperature in the plating fluid I gave it an occasional ping in the microwave while 'management' weren't watching.

Process : -

Clean the part as best possible and finish with fine wire wool to get a bright finish. Dust off with the air line. Note that screw threads and knurling are impossible to clean but the next stage in the CCCF seems to overcomes this.

Dangle the part in the CCCF using copper wire hooked over the side of the jar. Ultrasound for 5 minutes at 40 degrees (ish).

Rinse well in warm water otherwise condensation appears on the part.

Dangle in the pickle solution for I minute with ultrasound on.

Rinse well once again in warm water and dry on a paper towel.

From this point on do not touch the part with your hands or contamination of the cleanliness achieved will mar your end results.

Dangle the item in plating solution for 20 minutes with the solution warmed to around 30 degrees. The jar is separate to the tank so no ultrasound but an occasional waggle of the part seems useful.

I need to qualify the set up a bit better. My kilner has two anodes, one on each side of the jar which are approx 3" apart. The current limit on the power supply was set to 100 mA for small parts and a bit higher for larger surfaces areas. Note that Gateros recommend 120 mA per square inch. If you overdo this the parts start to bubble and any sharp corners will start to show burning of the plating.

Don't load the bath with parts, up the current and then remove them one by one as the last one to remain gets the full dose and burns. Best to switch off while loading and unloading.

Note also when plating screw threads to move the copper suspension wire along the thread about half way through plating to avoid an annoying mark on the thread.

The results have been remarkably good with a high lustre finish with no distracting defects visible.

If of interest a more detailed blow by blow might be worth a write up in MEW.

Alan

Now you mention it, the problem mechanisms were the ones with the two pins to short on the back to manually set the time.

I can't recall visiting a Lidl in UK but when in France we do buy quite a bit there. My other half does the food and I go rummaging in their 'specials' bins. I picked up a really good socket and spanner set for EUR80 and have had a cheap digital caliper and inside/outside thermostat. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but either way the prices seem very low given the X/F.

Alan

On the subject of radio controlled analogue clock movements, I bought some UK locked modules from Ebay and did not have much success with them. They were very erratic in operation around the house and I put it down to EMC in the house causing blocking signals on the UK frequency (MSF).

I now use modules from Cousins which lock to DCF in Germany. Cousins offer various forms, - with and without pendulum, with two different shaft standards, each with two different arbor lengths. They also offer hands to fit both. They also do high torque version for large clock formats.

The DCF signal works very well in the UK and I have installed DCF modules in clocks operating well down into France.

As received from the supplier they have a locking pin pushed into the back of the case. If you are in Europe you put the hands onto the arbor at 12 o'clock and if in UK you set them to 11 o'clock. You then pull out the locking pin and insert a battery. The hands will immediately move to 3 o'clock (UK) (4 o'clock if set for Europe) and wait for an update. This usually takes around 10 to 20 minutes. The time is then synchronised. It will auto adjust for DST.

If you move the hands to change the time without taking out the battery and without inserting the locking pin you might then get the correct time but only until you lose power to the clock (flat battery etc). It will then come up with an offset relating to how much you have 'back wound' the mechanical mechanism in relation to what its electronics think it should be.

If you end up in this situation you should remove the battery, wait a few seconds and then plug it back in and wait for the mechanism to go to what it thinks is the initial 3 o'clock position (or 4 o'clock) whereupon you should quickly remove the battery and insert the pin to stop the mechanism moving while you physically move the hands to re-position them to 3 o'clock (UK) or 4 o'clock (Europe). When set correctly you gently pull out the pin and insert the battery. The clock hands will rotate to a rest position and then get a radio update. Because the hands are already at 3 or 4 the mechanisms sometimes do a full 12 hour rotate or go to a later time (I have seen 8 o'clock) while waiting to synchronise.

I hope that makes sense. I know that all might seem a bit obvious but I do get a lot of call outs where people love to physically move the hands on what should be a 'don't touch' automatic clock.

Alan

Bill's wife still offers all his documentation but I think Ian Cobb also offers them in the UK.

The whole clock is interesting in the techniques used and includes a pin wheel and Dodd Daisy mechanical divider.

You are right that the Hipp Toggle causes the arm to drop which in turn causes the ball race to run down the slope and push the pendulum away. Subsequently the contacts close and the arm is reset. It is tricky to set up until you grasp what is going on and the interactions that occur. I have pushed resets out to around 90 seconds through tweaking.

Alan

Hi David

I built Bill Smith's Gearless gravity arm clock which had a hip toggle sustaining mechanism. I tried to bypass his ideas by using readily available solenoids from the internet but in the end reverted to home made.

The design had two coils.

I used B&Q 'black' steel rod for the cores.

For the former end plates (1.25" diameter) I used discs of double sided printed circuit board Araldited to the core ends and with the copper hack removed to leave appropriate lands for the wire terminations. I used 0.55mm copper self fluxing wire for the windings and covered the core before I started with a layer of copier paper.

I built up layer upon layer in an even manner while rotating the former slowly in the lathe. Every second or third layer I put a single layer of copier paper. This gave a flat surface to start the next winding onto if I had messed up the previous layer. I finished off with a layer of self amalgamating tape which doesn't look pretty but made sure the wire was held firmly.

I had one clang while winding where the wire snagged and broke. I drilled a couple of holes in the end cheek as close to the winding depth so far and took the broken end out through the end cheek. I feed the broken end of the feed reel out and jointed it and then continued. This kept the joint outside of the winding mass so there was no exposed joint to cause shorts. That might sound a bit confusing and hopefully you won't have cause to do the same.

When complete the two coils had significant magnetic pull with little residual hysteresis. The current consumed at 12V was around 100mA and with the short period of activation (100ms) this was quite good to run from a battery for around 12 months.

Image below shows the development lash up. Ignore the curly wurly coils, they are just for effect. The cardboard shroud is to stop stray light affecting my Microset timing device light sensor.

Recommend Bill's book not just for this section and the concept of the design but also for his wealth of information on workshop techniques and tools. This is enhanced with his videos. Sadly Bill is no longer with us.

Kind regards

Alan

Thanks everyone, much appreciated. My project can proceed.

It is close to 6mm / 0.25" and is not M6 fine or coarse but somewhere between these two. Doesn't appear to be UNF or BSF or BA. All engineering drawings found on the net so far do not specify what the thread is.

For something so common in the AV world there must be a standard ?

Try Tony at Lathes.co.uk. He is usually good for most manuals.

I receive a clock magazine which ran a monthly article where they asked the well known names / contributors/ self proclaimed deities to submit a list of their 5 favourite tools with a paragraph about each with the why and wherefore. It appealed to all level of skills and often gave food for thought.

Hi Michael

A bit late but found your forum note on rope knurls.

AccuTrak in the States make them and their UK agent is

ATM Machine Tools

Unit 4 Molly Millar's Bridge, Wokingham RG41 2WY

+44(0)118 977 0099

They are very expensive ~ GBP200 each.

I have been making various 'old style' Morse keys and have used the knurl on the screws.

I made a knurl using ClickSpring's video and it worked but it was not fine enough for instrument type terminals.

Kind regards

Alan

Thanks Thor, perhaps not the best material to be filing.

Have ordered a magnet to size on Ebay ...

Alan

I had need of a small magnet and had some broken pieces of neodymium that I thought I would file to the required shape.

Now I am not sure if I should have expected it but the file immediately created flying sparks and smouldering filings. Quite impressive.

Probably more effective than flint for those heading to the backwoods and needing to make fire and not having two boy scouts to rub together.

Anyone any knowledge about this property ?

Alan

Linseed oil cut with thinners,

Like many others I mourn the loss of the Abrafile attachment to fit hacksaw frames. Tile saws seemed to be the closest approximation but very thick diameter and clunky ends needing big pilot holes.

While browsing in Axminster I saw their Japanese Free-Way Saw and was taken by the very thin spiral blade that is available for it. The problem was that the blade had a chunky loop at each end to grip it in the saw frame. The loop is crimped to the blade with a small diameter boss not unlike the diameter of the bulbous ends of the Abrafile.

On one end of the blade I trimmed off the loop to leave just the boss. I then replaced the non handle end of the saw body clamp with a 7mm square 36mm long section piece of steel with a tapped M4 hole in one end. At the other end I milled a trough (12mm) to take the boss and a lead hole/slot to suit the blade diameter.

The blade mount is fastened in place with a M4 cap head and washer and the blade is tensioned as normal by revolving the handle.

The blade stroke length is reduced to around 4.5" but that aside the blades are quite aggressive on brass and aluminium.

I find Acetal (Delrin) and HDPE are lovely to machine and tap using standard tooling. Finish on Delrin is very smooth.

The Noggin End Metals site has a plastics section and there are a few words of the properties in each section.

Hope that helps.

Alan

I wonder if anyone has built Bill's Magnavert bug key ? While I have completed a number of his projects successfully I find the book for the key very erratic and confusing. Given it was written in 2012 when he was turning 90 and losing mobility I can understand it. Sadly he is no longer with us.

Has anyone else out there made this morse key and suffered and solved the issues it raises ?

Alan