GearHeads Forum

Art,
  I did not want you thinking I was a "free energy" nut 

In the words of a movie astronaut recently stranded on Mars...."You scienced the shit out of it!"

lol.. there's worse types of nuts about..


Art

Kineticrazy wrote: Dan,
   The friction reduction you've found, I'm trying to picture exactly where the friction occurs. Is it the pin passing over your plastic pawls that flows more smoothly?

I found that even the slightest drag of the spring rubbing against the flanges of the spools was one place.  The dogs slide better than the wooden ones and they are a bit heavier so the actuate better. It's been at least a year since I built it but at age 74 I am sure there were other reasons why the acrylic run better than the wood.
Dan Mauch

Thanks Dan,
    I'm questioning the use of bearings in my machine. I use skateboard bearings, shields removed, cleaned and lubricated...but they don't spin like the bearings I remember as a kid.The caged balls in skateboard bearings seem to slow them down. They don't "free wheel" but seem to have more friction than a sleeved hole and shaft would have. What sort of bearings have you been using? Your sculptures are beautiful and run well, I would love to know some of your methods...counter rotating wheels has got me a pulling out what little remaining hair I have left, and you seem to have them mastered. I would be overjoyed if you shed some light on their design.

74 is the new 50 !!

Thanks for your time,

Eric

Yesterday after looking at the side of my version of Zinna I then remembered that the pin that the storage spring spool  also had a slight drag which was another reason to make that spool also out of acrylic. I also installed bearing on the other spool. BTW I only wind my Zinna 18 turns and get about 15 minutes of run time with  stock spring Boyer recommends. I am using shielded bearings but I run them for a time before installing them. When I use to work on Submarines one of the jobs was to assemble the SV radar gearbox. After it was assembled I place thermometers on the cases where the bearing were and it was surprising. When I ran the gearbox in the shop the temperatures rose on the bearing housings but after about a 1/2 hour of running the bearing temps would drop to ambient. I never forgot that and thus always run my bearings either by a electric drill or some bearings I take out to the shop and use a compressed air nozzle with the bearing on an arbor and spin it up. You be surprised at how fast they run that way. Possibly 100000 RPM !!!!
Dan Mauch

Hi Dan,
I was wondering if you ever used Glycerine for a lubricant?  Its about the slippyiest stuff I know if you get it on your hands but I have no idea if it would work on slow moving items such as a kinetic art piece.

John

Dan,
  That's a great idea to loosen up your bearings!! I've got a fresh box of bearings awaiting treatment.

Thanks for the tip,


Eric

P.S.  I've rung quite a bit of seawater out of my socks as well !!

Scares me! 

Here is a short video that I just made to demonstrate the difference between a non spun up bearing and one that is. Be careful if yoy try this as I would estimate the speed at 100K RPM  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW3Emgh ... e=youtu.be

Dan

Kineticrazy wrote: Dan,
   That's a great idea to loosen up your bearings!! I've got a fresh box of bearings awaiting treatment.

Thanks for the tip,


Eric

P.S.  I've rung quite a bit of seawater out of my socks as well !!

Dan,
    Thanks for taking the time to make the video. Good stuff.

Appreciated,

Eric