Vanlock 7 pin weird lock--building a pick!

 

Inventing (and building) the Van Rocker!

It's a lock pick unlocker for the Vanlock company lock.

This is the lock:

7 pin pushers:

I put them on the lathe to reduce the diameter of one end of the pin pushers:

This is a Vanlock key. It has 7 pins that seem to be one of 5 different lengths:

I disassembled the key for curiosities sake, and used the round part as a template:

 

Drilling the block of the VanLock Rocker:

This pic shows the middle, wider portion of the pusher pins. That keeps it from falling out of either the top or bottom of the block.

If you lock at the last hole it is smaller---it hasn't been drilled yet with a larger bit---but not all the way through. The smaller hole left on the other side of the block will stop the wider middle part of the pusher pins from falling out:

Made a little cap piece to hold the pins in:

To be continued....

Refrigerator ice dispenser repair

 Ice dispenser made a huge noise and stopped shooting ice out the door.

The ice enclosure (Maytag 61005615) had a huge hole where the motor that dispenses and crushes ice fell backwards into the fridge.

One retention screw on left side and it lifted out. Chute door opener rod motor and the big motor are attached via a single plug (green wire on top of plug). I just unplugged stuff individually because I've never worked on a fridge before.

I put the jigsaw pieces back together for the motor mount and traced to a thick sheet of brass and drilled the 4 mounting holes.

I drilled the holes for a loose fit because the brass plate is just acting like a washer so the motor doesn't fall back or forward. It's a patch.

Drilled a 10mm hole where the shaft of the motor attached to the two-finger spinning thing that turns the ice auger. Then band sawed it to the edge. This let me slide the plate on without having to take off the two-finger auger spinner thing.

It works again! Although seeing how brittle everything is I'll probably not use the crushed ice button as often.

Photos are in reverse order... it's more exciting that way.

Scratchy 

Frequency crystal motional parameters

 

The motional inductance (Lm) and motional capacitance (Cm) of radio frequency crystals are of importance when designing crystal filters for narrowing bandwidth of a device (usually a radio). 

I soldered a circuit together and used a test setup invented by a HAM (Hobby Amateur Radio) guy. The math looked scary but you just plunk in your numbers. 

You test 50 or so crystals and then group the 10 most similar ones and use them.

Cs = size of the capacitor in the circuit.

Co = measure the capacitance of the crystal with a meter.

^f = the delta (change) between measuring the crystal with and without the capacitor switched on in the circuit. Subtract one frequency from the other.

F = the first capacitor off in the circuit measurement.

            Capacitance of the crystal by itself:

Little circuit board kit I soldered up (not the capacitor on/off switch to the left):

Frequencies with/without the capacitor turned on:

The motional parameters of that radio frequency crystal (I was off by some decimal places, lol):

Guitar Distortion Fuzz Overdrive Pedal with 50 diodes!

 Guitar Distortion Fuzz Overdrive Pedal with 50 diodes!

Ordinary guitar distortion pedals usually have 0, 1 or 2 diodes. Some have 3. I've started making one with 50 diodes attached to 5 knobs. Each knob will have 10 diodes + 1 off/bypass setting.

They are 11 position, 1 pole, 1 deck rotary switches.

Knobs 1, 2 and 3 will have identical sets of 10 different diodes. 

Knobs 4 and 5 will have identical sets of 10 different diodes that weren't of the type used before.

That yields 50 diodes--that are 20 different types.

This allows for:

Matched pairs on 1 and 2. 

Matched pairs with asymmetrical stacking on 1, 2 and 3. 1 diode on one side, and 2 diodes on the other side.

Matched pairs on 4 and 5. Asymmetrical stacking with non-matching on 1, 2 and 4 or 5.

Smoothing using 4 and or 5 added to 1 and 2 and/or 3.

Here's the diodes wired up. Knobs 1 and 4 have the diodes going one way, 2, 3 and 5 have them going the other way. Diodes need to be opposing in the circuit so they clip the top and bottom of the signal--this is what creates distortion/overdrive/fuzz.

Opposing diodes:

Temporary schematic:

I will be adding a tone knob section (bass/treble) and possibly a selector switch which will short the knobs (diodes) directly to the ground wire which will yield a harder clipping to the voltage through the diodes--more a heavy metal tone vs blues and rock. 

Also, going with a 9 pin footswitch instead of 6 pin: that will make wiring easier. In the schematic I'm not liking the current setup for the footswitch (possibly should swap to top wires on right side around). 

My greatest issue with circuits: potentiometers (aka volume knobs). Sometimes they are used as voltage dividers/potentiometers--but sometimes as variable trimmer resistors (2 wires vs 3 wires). Here they're being used "properly" with 3 wires. 

This is a work in progress ~June 2024!

 

More watchmaking

 

Barrel making on the Taig Lathe:

Double barrel (two) springs needed:

Jewels needed:

P.P. Thornton gear cutters needed:

Knurling tool I adapted to my small lathe: