Watchmaking Machinery Part 1

 

Watchmaking Machinery Part 1

Here is my new Taig Microlathe II with a binocular microscope attached to it. 

The microscope is a Swift 2x/4x mounted on an arm that I made out of plate steel and aluminum tubing. It has an LED illuminator and almost the entire microscope is made out of metal!

Taig lathes are still MADE IN AMERICA and are extremely high precision instruments.

View through the microscope at 2x:

Actual size view:

The microscope is removable for safe keeping. I mounted the lathe onto a filecabinet drawer type thing and filled it with the accessories: milling attachment, tools, measurement devices, etc.

The initial order to Taig was for:

1017#3 Starter Set #3 - Base + 5C Headstock       

1096 Unground tool bit 1/4" square       

1170 Extra Tool Post       6             

1171 Back Tool Post        2             

1110 Slitting saw arbor                 

1232 1/4" Diameter Milling Cutter           

1230A 1/16 dia Milling Cutter    

1230C 1/8 dia.Milling Cutter      

1111 Hi Speed Slitting Saw          

1152 Die Holder for Tailstock     

1224 Fly Cutter

1210 Radius Turner        

1038 4 inch swivel joint tool rest (wood turners)

1190 Steady Rest            

1225 Milling Vice             

1173 T Bar Cutoff Tool  

1200 Top Slide Mounts  1220 Milling attachment              

300-82 (T-Bar Cutoff Mount)      

Tons of other tools, bits, bit steel to grind my own cutters, calipers, dial indicators, raw metal stock, etc. are on their way too.

The first learning goal is to take an existing watch movement and replace it piece-by-piece with pieces that I manufacture. Replacing steel with brass, until I've made a complete movement. See you in a few years...

The chosen movement is an ETA 6498 M03 that was introduced in 1950. It's a pocket watch movement. ETA's website is awful and always down for service. If you need the tech specs for this movement do a search for "'CT_6498-2_FDE_482480_08" and there will be a few results.

Halloween 2021 Pumpkin Contest

 

Halloween 2021 Pumpkin Contest @ work

Old defibrillator, IV bag + stand, and a red pumpkin. 

I can't decide whether to call it "Mama told me to make some friends, so I am" or just "I heart Halloween".

I put veins on the red pumpkin with some hot glue gun glue. That worked out well. I had a jammed glue gun and was spraying the glue onto a paper towel to unclog it--then I realized it'll be better to put that on the pumpkin. 

Supra Advantage Express II real estate lock opened

 Supra Advantage Express II 

Real Estate Lock Opened 

These locks have: a big shackle to attach the lock, and a small drawer that opens and gives the real estate agent a key to the house so they can show it to potential buyers.   

These locks are digital, and though they have a removable keypad you need to update a PAID subscription service to get the keypad to actually interact with the lock. There are cool reporting functions (what agent got the key out, when they did, when they put it back, etc.). 

I have the manual, the keypad, a new odd battery for the keypad and the actual lock. No good. This is a bypass...with a hammer. 

 The lock still functioned (locked) afterward and I can do this over and over and still lock the shackle. It take a good wack or three on the side of the lock, near the top to open the shackle because it is spring retained. 

I was using a lead hammer, but one of the transparent yellow plastic headed hammers would probably work better since you're trying to basically vibrate the metal components against the spring tension to pop it open. 

Below is the mechanism for the house-key compartment at the bottom of the Supra Advantage lock. 

It is basically two metal pins (on at each end) and a winding of red lacquer-coated magnet wire. Power (probably 12 to 24 volts DC) goes through the wire and it pulls in both pins. That releases the little drawer in the bottom of the lock so you can get the house key out. 

Here is video of just about 9vDC making the pins go in and out. Higher voltage would make them go inward farther/longer time allowing the drawer to spring open.

This little drawer can be defeated by hitting the lock, near the bottom (but on the side) with a plastic headed hammer. 

One of those with the transparent yellow heads. This can for the pins (and the springs that hold them outward/locked) to jiggle around and the drawer will fall open. Or it will jam. 

There are 3 hollow split pins at the bottom edge of the lock. All those do is keep you from slamming the drawer too far shut. They have zero value when physically trying to break the lock open.

Micro Precision Drill Press Watchmaker Drill Press

 

So, making wristwatch parts requires teeny-tiny little drill bits (0.3mm). For fun I took my mini cylindrical drill, a drill press stand and a magnifying LED light with clamp and made my own micro precision drill press.

I shopped around: a USED micro drill press is close to $8000. A crappy one is $350. This cast iron beast was way, way, way less than all that.

Feast your beady little eyes on my sub-millimeter hole shooter (explanations after the photos):

This stand is fantastic. I added a "micro drill" to it instead of a corded drill. This is for micro drilling. I'm using drill bits with diameters of LESS than a millimeter usually. Watchmaking 0.3mm to 2.4mm bits usually. Some of them are literally thinner than a human hair. Most people buy these for CORDED drills with clamping collars (i.e., most corded Milwaukee, Metabo and Wen drills).  

This stand is VERY heavy for its size due to its cast iron base (I checked it with a magnet). The magnet stuck to all the green parts. The magnet did NOT stick to the yellow part (the moving dovetail part of the head and the drill collar clamp part). The magnet also stuck to the actual column, meaning it's steel and not aluminum. The rotating part of the head is green and steel. I'm not using that function, but it's still nice. 

The jibs (part that the dovetails rub against) are replaceable copper strips. The dovetail tightness can be adjusted by screws. Yes, you can fine tune this thing just like a lathe or milling machine. That simple thing is a HEAVY DUTY feature in any machine.

The spring is fairly hard to pull down without a drill in it. I'm assuming once you put a heavy corded drill in there it will pull down easily. My cylindrical drill is very light comparatively--so there is a little extra pressure needed. Although it's not bad. If it was a problem you just unhook the bottom of the spring, and pull it up out the top and replace it with a weaker (or stronger) spring to suit your taste. I'm just happy that the flat pinion rack (flat part of metal that engages with the gear when you pull the lever down) is nice and smooth. VERY smooth.

Here's a tip: if you don't want to bolt this to a bench top you can bolt three rectangular blocks of wood to the underside of the base. The left/right support the press on a table/shelf for storage. Then when you want to use this thing you clamp the center block of wood into a vise. I have that on some mini-vises that can clamp into bigger vises like Ukrainian nesting dolls. LOL! Anyway, YOU NEED TO CLAMP/BOLT/SCREW this to a work surface--it's not super tippy, but when you pull down on the lever it will be. The base has holes in tabs in all four corners (plus one huge hole in center). 

When open the circular hole that you clamp on your drill collar is 43mm. My cylindrical drill has a diameter of 40mm. I needed one of the (three or four) plastic sleeves they give you to assist clamping smaller collars. That 3mm thick sleeve really made a difference. 

In my photos I show a 1mm drill bit in my drill--but shown through the magnifying lamp I added. My intention is to add a wooden base with a couple drawers for tiny drill bits--and then mount the speed control for my drill (0-13,000 RPM) to the LEFT side of the cabinet. That way I can adjust the drill speed with my left hand while pulling down with my right.

Things I would change:

It comes with FOUR Allen key/wrenches because they used FOUR different sized Allen bolts. One of the keys only fits the bolt for the arrow pointer head thingy on the depth gauge. It doesn't matter to me, but they'd have to buy/store/track 1 less bolt size, 1 less nut size, and give away 1 less Allen key if they just settled on THREE sizes of bolts. They could probably just use TWO sizes. 

The depth gauge has "6" at the top and "0" at the bottom. That means as you pull down on the drill your depth gauge is reading backwards. A two centimeter deep drilling hole goes from 6 to 4--instead of 0 to 2. I've seen that on other tools, and it's annoying.

The cap on the top of the column has a little hook for the drill power cord. It's very open and the cord can fall out. No big deal, it's probably loose so the cord doesn't catch and the drill moves down--but maybe a "V" shape that contains the cord and let's it move rather than a "C" shape that lets it fall out. With that said, my drill cord and my magnifying light cord seem pretty happy--and I can always zip-tie them loosely if need be. 

Why did I do this when I have other BIG drill presses, lathe, etc.? I'm playing around with a couple of wristwatch movements and wanted to drill REALLY small holes. I started looking at tiny drill presses: garbage plasticy ones for $80; garbage plastically ones for $350; nice ones at about $1000. Really nice ones up to $15,000. Yes, the price of a car--for a teeny tiny drill press. Look up used "Precision drill press" and you'll be amazed. No thanks.

There is a somewhat similar drilling stand which looks cooler (all steel) but it looks like it has rack and pinion metal-strips pop riveted together as it's movement mechanism. Lots of sideways jiggle and non-repeatable drilling (can't hit the same hole twice). No thanks.

To be clear: the magnifying light and cylinder micro drill DO NOT COME WITH THIS THING.

Anyway, I would go this route versus a sub-$1000 precision drill press. Anything under $1000 is going to be trash. Make your own setup with this.

M1K3 FR0M D3TR01T

DIY Easy Double Slit Experiment

DIY Easy Double Slit Experiment

Items needed:

2 paper binder clips (any size)

1 large paper binder clip

2 razor blades

1 sewing needle

1 laser pointer

Wood or cardboard base to stick pin into

Put binder clips on the razor blades so they stand up.

Jam the pin so it sticks upright out if the wood or cardboard base (I used a wooden cigar box).

Put the laser pointer into the large binder clip.

Keep moving the razor blades closer and closer to both sides of the needle. 

The dual nature of photon particles vs wave theory; classical vs quantum physics!

Eventually you'll get interference lines.

AIPHONE C-ML Intercom Door Lock

 AIPHONE C-ML Intercom and magnetic door unlock wiring system.

Outside the building a delivery person presses the doorbell button on the LE-D unit and lets go. This rings a loud bell on the C-ML.

Inside a security person presses and holds the microphone flip switch on the C-ML and talks into it "how may I help you?" and then lets go of the switch-which in turn activates a microphone on the outdoor LE-D unit.

The outside delivery person has a few seconds to speak "your sandwiches are here!"

The indoor security person can then press the little black door unlock button which cuts power to the magnet holding the door open for a few seconds allowing sandwich to be delivered.

Alternately, a person can swipe a magnetic swipe card in the REI reader, or type in a code on the REI keypad and the door magnet will unlock for a few seconds.

With short runs of wire during testing only 3vDC was needed for the intercom and doorbell to work. I also have a 16.5vAC Revere wall wart that might work on parts of this system-possibly feeding the keyboard logic boards and magnet lock "brain" (still playing around).

Green wire on left, white on right.

When the little black door unlock button is pressed on the C-ML the ohm resistance on the green and white wires change. There is no voltage, this acts as an on/off switch for the door magnet/keypad part. 

There are a lot of wires on the keypad that interface with the unlock button, card reader and the magnet lock. I'll update in a week or two when i open that up and wire it in. 

Left top/Black wire/Door open (ohm continuity)

Right top/White wire/Door open (ohm continuity)

Middle left/Black negative DC power

Middle right/Green to LE-D doorbell

Bottom left/Red positive DC power

Bottom right/White  to LE-D doorbell

Now i have to wire up the keypad "brain" of the system and the keycard slide reader.

"Just slide the sandwiches under the truck...meow."

Unlock DVD security case with red padlock

Place rare earth neodymium magnets (the super strong chrome looking ones) as shown. Then slide them together at same time.

These were tiny 6mm magnet cylinders from K&J magnets store. I had to double up and use two per side to make it easier.

Slightly larger magnets would have worked even easier. I have some 1" cube N52 that make it even easier, but i wanted to see how small I could go. A single 6mm cylinder on each side might barely work if you practice...but just stack a couple and you're good to go. 

Placement matters. The magnets still still stick on the DVD case of you switch sides, but they won't unlock it.

Bottom of red padlock side = top left.

Top of red padlock = bottom right.

Worst part is pinching your fingers with N52 magnets: very painful 😖

...and here are a couple, slightly larger magnets I sunk into a hunk of scrap wood. Works great: