CNC and clock building

[bill z]

It rained a bunch here last week. I live near the North side of Houston. Maybe you heard about it some on the news.

Where I work, called work off for the week and that gave me time to work of my clock. The bad news is that I am contracted so no work equates to no income.

I found that the 11.5 inch long 1.25 diameter conduit full of lead isn’t heavy enough at 7.25 pounds at this stage of the clock. In the picture below, you can see the extra weight I added to get it to tick. My hope is that as I work with it, the added weight will not be necessary.

I also found the pallets in the DXF is undersized (my case anyway, maybe too much sanding). I had to glue pieces of tongue depressor to the ends where the escape wheel touches. This works out real nice because the tongue depressor is very smooth and works better than the end of the plywood, even well sanded.

As I assembled the gears, I used a hair dryer without the heat to move the gears to find where they rubbed enough to cause them to stop. I just worked it till all of the gears were added. Problem that I now notice is by adding the weight, the frame flexes just enough where, once all of the teeth worked, now some touch and drag.

[cjablonski]

Bob, she's becoming a thing of beauty! Coming along very nicely and great work! Keep us posted!

[rungemach]

Bill,

It is possible that the clock will not run correctly if it has too much weight also.

I think my Simplicity is about 2.85 pounds net. ( I built the two weight version and the main weight is 3.1 lbs and the counterweight is .25lbs)
Clayton mentions his Simplicity runs at about 3 pounds. I would try a single weight of 4 lbs and start looking for friction.

Any friction in the moving pieces is very important. you may find this link helpful.

http://claytonboyer.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... ps-on.html

also, did you check to be sure that your machine is cutting dimensionally accurate parts. if you make a 1" square, is it 1 inch?
if you cut an 8 inch square, are the corners at exactly 90 degrees?
having the dimensions off, or a machine "out of square" will make gears that do not work reliably.
If your machine is cutting correctly, you should have very little sanding to do.

bob

Hope this helps. You will feel great when it is running.

Bob

[bill z]

Bob,

Excellent question about my Shark not being square. Since I purchased my Shark used, you created doubt, so I checked it as you suggested, plus I added a few. Not only squares, but circles and some letters. Some I cut outside the line and for the identical shape, I cut inside the line. My thought was that the shape I cut outside of the line should just fit in the same shape where I cut inside the line.

They all did.

With confidence in the Shark, I drew my attention to sanding the gears more using first 400 then 800 grit. I’m in the process of that now.

In the link you provided, I read where Boyer responded saying to watch for frame flexing. But he didn’t mention what to do to prevent it. I would like to know.

So, I spent some time sanding and polishing everything. Mounted the clock on the mount. Found about 3 pounds of washers for a weight and started it up. Frame did not flex.

The best part is that it is working for the past 20 minutes.

I’ll let you know tomorrow if it goes 8 and more hours.

[cjablonski]

Excellent! Hope it all works well

[bill z]

This morning a thunder storm rolled in and took out the power. Still out some 3 hours now.

However, the Simplicity Clock that I worked so hard on is still ticking. Running for 10 hours with no stopping. The minute hand fell off. No real big issue there, just too close to the hour hand.

A big Ta Da!!! I'm very happy.

I'm at work now, remember, no electricity at home. When I get back, I'll weigh the stack of washers to see what it took to run. Then I'll start backing off to see how little weight it will take to run. Might as well have some fun, now that it will run.

I'll let you know.

[cjablonski]

Awesome and congratulations

[bill z]

After getting home, I weighed the stack of washers and the clip. Right at 2 pounds. Yes! I know!! 2 pounds! I started with way too much Like 8 pounds.

So, I tried running the clock with just 1.5 pounds and it ran for 5 minutes then stopped. I gave it a nudge and it has been running for the past hour.

It must be one spot that needs to be polished again. OK, there might be more than one. I'll keep it running for a while.

2 pounds.

[bill z]

For my next project, I'm going to order the Epicyclic DXF from Clayton when his 2CO comes back up.

http://lisaboyer.com/Claytonsite/epicyclicpage1.htm

[cjablonski]

Excellent! How's the simplicity running now? She still tickin?