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Time to Get Electrical

Is the fidget spinner a 1968 original or is that a component you added more recently? :smilingimp:
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Actually, it has a very interesting story. It was originally patented by the inventor Catherine Hettinger in 1997. She has a muscle weakness inducing autoimmune disorder and wanted a way to entertain her daughter. It went through several iterations and she even went to Hasbro to get it mass produced. However, they changed their mind and the patent lapsed in 2005 as she couldn't afford the fee. It was mostly forgotten about till its popularity exploded a few years ago, but the original inventor is still quite poot.

You can read an interview with Catherine here
 
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The motor was salvaged off another underpowered machine I bought just to get the cast iron bits.
It was originally off an old water well pump and had that vintage appeal so it fit the theme.
The bonus to using the pressure switch on it is the fact that it has an overide switch built right in :p
 
All of this was all scaled up and frozen with rust.
Like it had been in the wet for decades.
I used both Kroil and fire to get it apart.
A nod has to go out to Evaporust for taking the heavy work too.
20221210_150539.jpg

The original cast iron pulley was first faced then turned after a scraping pass was cut on the groove area.
The drive nuts were faced, turned then wire brushed on the flats.
The oiler caps on the table were scaled up, so I contour ground a tool and restored their faces.
After turning the ODs of them, I ran a single knurl on them.
 
I have a screwdriver somewhere, I think... maybe...

...That's it. That's all there is.

Tools baffle me, it's amazing to me to see the wide array of STUFF in this thread (and I have no idea whatsoever as to what most of it is).
 
Moogwizard said:
May favorite thing to work on , it is a 1968 Wurlitzer 200a . Also my favorite instrument to play In bands .It requires maintenance and repairs from time to time. Because it is so old .

It is all mechanical portable piano . All real wood and capacitors and transistors. No digital components.
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I don't know why, but this post reminded me of something I saw when I was living on the streets. It was a man pushing a piano along the footpath, not something you see every day.

Have you ever seen a street busker playing a mobile piano? I have:

20191207_182851.jpg


20191207_182939.jpg
 
Misery said:
I have a screwdriver somewhere, I think... maybe...

...That's it. That's all there is.

Tools baffle me, it's amazing to me to see the wide array of STUFF in this thread (and I have no idea whatsoever as to what most of it is).
Click to expand...
Like me with computers ! I have one of those somewhere . I am not the best with computers.
 
Outdated said:
I sent those pics to a musician mate in Melbourne and he told me that the piano man tours all around Australia. That's what he does for a living.
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He should have learned to play the harmonica instead. ;) Much easier to travel around Australia with a harmonica, it doesn't need wheels.
 
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I've just been going through some of my retro computers and just found my trusty old CPC 464 flashes it's LED and trips out it's 5v supply. I hadn't planned on doing any repairs and my "work bench" isn't super organized like yours but it looks like it's time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

I hadn't looked at the inside of the machine since I was maybe 18 (much longer ago than I want to admit). But there was some damn weird soldering I had done on an unpopulated IC footprint. It was so hamfisted it must have been at least two decades ago. I don't think that's the problem though. I suspect the cassette unit has gone bad. Besides, I cleaned up the offensive soldering and it's still not working.

This might actually be one situation where a capacitor is actually to blame! But I wont know until I power up the main board with the cassette unit out of circuit.

I've made my thoughts about indiscriminate "re-capping" known on the muttering thread lol! :smilecat:
 
MildredHubble said:
I've just been going through some of my retro computers and just found my trusty old CPC 464 flashes it's LED and trips out it's 5v supply. I hadn't planned on doing any repairs and my "work bench" isn't super organized like yours but it looks like it's time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

I hadn't looked at the inside of the machine since I was maybe 18 (much longer ago than I want to admit). But there was some damn weird soldering I had done on an unpopulated IC footprint. It was so hamfisted it must have been at least two decades ago. I don't think that's the problem though. I suspect the cassette unit has gone bad. Besides, I cleaned up the offensive soldering and it's still not working.

This might actually be one situation where a capacitor is actually to blame! But I wont know until I power up the main board with the cassette unit out of circuit.

I've made my thoughts about indiscriminate "re-capping" known on the muttering thread lol! :smilecat:
Click to expand...
Sounds fun ! Oh yeah old capacitors prone to failure and leaking . I will check out you thread on Re- capping
 
Moogwizard said:
Sounds fun ! Oh yeah old capacitors prone to failure and leaking . I will check out you thread on Re- capping
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I hope so. I have to be careful I don't get super focused on it as I have a mountain of other things I need to give some attention to.

The reason why I suspect a capacitor is because it shows a brief flash of life then nothing. The main PCB is quite simple with a small number of chips. Usually if something has failed in terms of an IC usually the system will stay on while it merrily overheats. But this isn't even getting off the starting blocks. Plus the very few electrolytic capacitors are on the cassette PCB.

This particular machine has actually seen a lot of use so this makes the likelihood of a bad capacitor more likely. So once I rule out the main board I will have to start measuring some voltages on the cassette unit until I see something anomalous. :-)
 
MildredHubble said:
I hope so. I have to be careful I don't get super focused on it as I have a mountain of other things I need to give some attention to.

The reason why I suspect a capacitor is because it shows a brief flash of life then nothing. The main PCB is quite simple with a small number of chips. Usually if something has failed in terms of an IC usually the system will stay on while it merrily overheats. But this isn't even getting off the starting blocks. Plus the very few electrolytic capacitors are on the cassette PCB.

This particular machine has actually seen a lot of use so this makes the likelihood of a bad capacitor more likely. So once I rule out the main board I will have to start measuring some voltages on the cassette unit until I see something anomalous. :)
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Very Autistic , bottom up thinking!
 
Moogwizard said:
Sounds fun ! Oh yeah old capacitors prone to failure and leaking . I will check out you thread on Re- capping
Click to expand...
We had a dated but very accurate CNC turning center that sometimes refused to reboot upon startup.
There were fairly proprietary value electrolytic caps that were failing on the power supply board that would leak overnight that we generally had to heat with an electric heat gun in order to get it back online.
Since the center wasn't pivotal to overall production and the replacements of all the caps on the board were excessive ( cubic $$$), we decided to just put up with it for the few jobs it was needed for.

I'm sure that is a huge part of what takes consumer electronics out of the picture too.
-----------------------------------------------
I once ran an automotive repair facility with a focus on what we termed as no codes drivability concerns.
This was a motor vehicle that wasn't quite up to snuff on either starting or overall performance, but never flagged it with a check engine light or a stored trouble code. It wasn't uncommon to run two scopes on a ride, both a 4 trace one and a two trace chasing down a gremlin.
I can proudly say that we fixed many a ride that were treated with a shotgun approach by factory dealership techies who failed to hit their mark.
I even built a microphone system out of toy electronics that gave me up to 4 mics to place with magnets on various parts of a chassis to pin down suspension noises while driving.
We did a lot of chassis and suspension work there too.
Most of my life I have been heavily involved in motorsports, so it was only natural to exploit what equipment I gained to play with my toys for more money in my bank accounts in a facility that was already fairly overequipped for a hobbyist.

A lot of this went on during times I was either working as a mech engineer or polishing a desk chair with my butt somewhere running someone else's show.
-----------------------------
This album entry has a hopefully interesting description of a fairy cool project out of our machineshop:

https://www.autismforums.com/media/nascar-bump-stop.2153/​

 
Nitro said:
We had a dated but very accurate CNC turning center that sometimes refused to reboot upon startup.
There were fairly proprietary value electrolytic caps that were failing on the power supply board that would leak overnight that we generally had to heat with an electric heat gun in order to get it back online.
Since the center wasn't pivotal to overall production and the replacements of all the caps on the board were excessive ( cubic $$$), we decided to just put up with it for the few jobs it was needed for.

I'm sure that is a huge part of what takes consumer electronics out of the picture too.
-----------------------------------------------
I once ran an automotive repair facility with a focus on what we termed as no codes drivability concerns.
This was a motor vehicle that wasn't quite up to snuff on either starting or overall performance, but never flagged it with a check engine light or a stored trouble code. It wasn't uncommon to run two scopes on a ride, both a 4 trace one and a two trace chasing down a gremlin.
I can proudly say that we fixed many a ride that were treated with a shotgun approach by factory dealership techies who failed to hit their mark.
I even built a microphone system out of toy electronics that gave me up to 4 mics to place with magnets on various parts of a chassis to pin down suspension noises while driving.
We did a lot of chassis and suspension work there too.
Most of my life I have been heavily involved in motorsports, so it was only natural to exploit what equipment I gained to play with my toys for more money in my bank accounts in a facility that was already fairly overequipped for a hobbyist.

A lot of this went on during times I was either working as a mech engineer or polishing a desk chair with my butt somewhere running someone else's show.
-----------------------------
This album entry has a hopefully interesting description of a fairy cool project out of our machineshop:

https://www.autismforums.com/media/nascar-bump-stop.2153/​

Click to expand...
That was a very interesting read ! Thank you
 
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