Thursday, May 26, 2005
Polymorph samples have now arrived in New Zealand and have already found a use as gripping pads for the drive belt. This will be fitted directly to the Meccano trolley for the test phase. An experiment was performed to see if simple centrifuging of a syringe of hot polymorph can drive out the air bubbles. It can, but unfortunately, the resulting polyblob cannot be extruded from the syringe, even when boiled. As the syringe is also somewhat pliable at this point, it can be squeezed, separating the hot polymorph from the side of the syringe barrel and rescuing the syringe.
The FDM'd brackets arrived and are fine, except for a user malfunction that resulted in the holes being designed precisely 1mm too narrow. Expect an update to the AOI files in the near future.
Samples of magnetic rotation counters - which will be impervious to dust and other deposited crud - have been approved by Allegro, and dispatch is expected shortly. These are sensitive enough to detect individual teeth on a ferrous gearwheel rotating at 1,000+ RPM. They are designed for automotive applications, and so should ultimately be available from car spares suppliers.
Vik :v)
The FDM'd brackets arrived and are fine, except for a user malfunction that resulted in the holes being designed precisely 1mm too narrow. Expect an update to the AOI files in the near future.
Samples of magnetic rotation counters - which will be impervious to dust and other deposited crud - have been approved by Allegro, and dispatch is expected shortly. These are sensitive enough to detect individual teeth on a ferrous gearwheel rotating at 1,000+ RPM. They are designed for automotive applications, and so should ultimately be available from car spares suppliers.
Vik :v)
