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Old 31-10-2010, 07:46 PM
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erick (Eric)
Starcatcher

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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Gerringong
Posts: 8,548
OK, have all the bits now, put it all together, turned on and..................

..............well, it's not precision engineering!

Quite a lot of problems (no I didn't leave bits out or build it wrongly).

Motor has huge "wow" at speed, even with no load. I also have no idea where to set the speed control to get realtime speed?

Earth arm continued to sag, even though I had worked on that earlier. The chains help a bit but the large sun wheel would lose engagement with its drive cog. I've pulled out the black plastic washer under the large wheel and that has dropped it a mm or so so it engages now.

They supplied (in the 52A parts that came when the base plate was missing) a locking collar to make rigid one of the shaft supports that goes through the base plate. I need another locking collar. Shaft support 76 is very loose and twists in its hole, allowing the gears above the base plate to jump - Groundhog day - cannot advance to the next day!

The diameters of the shaft supports seem to be the same. I'll try to get another pack of 52A - but will have to email them - it's not clearly in the back order list.

So some fix-it work to be completed. I'm going to just align Earth, Moon and Sun. Not going to bother getting the Moon's inclined axis correct, nor worry about the eclipse indicators. I doubt it is worth the effort.
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