Day of Fixes

Today has included a series of fixes to things, all of them successful. This is very satisfying. First, I had a PSU connector on a laptop to install. This went pretty well, and the laptop now charges. The old connector was split in half and had to be persuaded to charge. Not any more.

 It charges!
The case is still broken though, but I don't think I need to do anything about that.

We went out today to get some wool for a fix,see below for that one. While we were out I spotted this camera in a charity shop:

It is a Panasonic DMC-TZ3, which is quite a nice camera, with a big 'Leica'lens and a solid feel to it. It was sold as seen, which turned out to mean broken. I tried it out in the shop and it kept on saying turn camera off and on again, which I put down to mean that the batteries were flat. This wasn't the case when I got it home and charged them, as the message persisted. A quick google confirmed that it's probably a stuck lens, someone on the internet gave it to a camera fixer and got it back a couple of days later with the problem gone. Stuck zoom lenses on compact cameras is a very common problem, so I decided to dismantle the camera and see if I could fix the problem. I did this and found some fluff and dirt in the lens zoom mechanism  Fbut didn't find anything obviously stuck. I put it back together and the message still appeared. Oh dear. While trying to get it to work I noticed that it never went into sharp focus. While dismantled I spotted two stepper motors, one for th ezoom mechanism and one for what looked like focus. I had fiddled with the zoom mechanism, but not the focus. I dismantled the lens again and looked at the focus hardware. It did appear to be stuck, so I took the focus stepper off and the mechanism was them moving. After re-assembly the camera worked. It takes pretty nice pictures too, so it will be put to work taking pictures of the ongoing project.
Incidentally, the focus motor looked very very similar to the small stepper motors that I have bought on ebay for the XY table project, so I think that's what they were originally made for.

The reason for the trip out was to get some dark blue wool for the next fix. A bit of darning:

I think it's come out quite well. (Picture taken with DMC-TZ3).

I forgot, I fixed a zip as well. Four fixes.


So, a busy day, all successful....

Tripod Fix Adjustment

I fixed my tripod a while back:

https://trochilidae.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/tripod-fixed-ive-printed-two-new-clamps.html

The clamp works by pressing onto a small rectangular block which stops the leg from collapsing. The 3D printed clamp wasn't quite the same size as the original on one of the clamps, so it didn't push very hard on the block. this meant the leg wasn't very firmly held when extended. Eventually the clamp slipped over the block and I lost it.

So I machined a new larger block out of nylon. This has fixed the problem and the clamp is now very firm when latching the leg.

Trend T3E Router

A few years ago, I bought a Trend T3E and it was installed as the woodrat router. After making plantation shutters and some other jobs it suddenly stopped working. I had a quick look and couldn't see any obvious fault, so put it away and bought a DeWalt 625 for the woodrat. As it happens it is a far superior router, much smoother, maybe a bit noisier, but with much smoother slides. Anyway, I now may have a need for the Trend, as it is lighter and more suited to hand held work. 

I got it out and put it on the bench to see if I could see why there was no rotation.

 I powered it up and it started first time. This was odd, so I took the top cover off and had a look. 

Quite a bit of sparking from the brushes, so maybe that's the problem. A quick ebay later and I have new brushes. They are a bit bigger than the old ones, but the old ones don't seem too much smaller. With new brushes, there's still a lot of sparking. There must be some other problem. I removed the rotor from the motor and had a look. The commutator seemed to have a couple of copper connectors that had raised above the rest.

This is why I have a lathe. The rotor was easy to fit into the lathe and I skimmed the high points off the rotor. I won't be able to do this very often as material is lost, but it wasn't necessary to remove much copper.

Anyway, afer re-assembly and running the new brushes for a while and the Trend is much happier. Still a bit of sparking going on, but I can probably use it for a while more.