David_Reynolds
Well-known member
That knackered spring could be replaced by a nice gas strut as well.
I miss understood you Phil, there isn't enough energy in the spring for striking 12, also the spring tension dictates the speed of the chimes, so works best to maintain it the best as possibleOut of interest, is there enough energy stored in the spring to strike "12" ... so there could be just a single 'wind', rather than many? Would the connection angle of the spring allow it?
Yes i understand the snubber was tring to be a pulse extender to get around the motor seeming to be pulsing as it did, i wasn't involed at that time, i had to try and sort that out, previous to that it was a hall effect switch that drove the motor directly, then for no know reason they changed to a tilt switch and snubber network, but looking back thats where the problems startednot that it was used to stop contact bounce.
It also reveals the snubber you mentioned as being some kind of pulse extender.
Yes i felt the switch wasn't in the best place therefore wasn't being operated as designed, the tilt switch being used has 2 balls inside, we know because we destroyed on ethe other day, a smaller ball does the contact and a larger ball pushes it, it does mean there isn't much space for the off position, so at that point we tried a mecury version and it seemed to move with a lot less bounceThe fifteen degrees from the tilt switch means the glob moving from one end of the switch to the other this is not happening to your switch because it is not at the centre of the axis, it is just giggling about on the outer edge
Each clock has a different requirement, some take 5 mins to reach 15 degrees some take 15 mins to reach the same, giving a pulse for 2 seconds every half an hour for example might have issues on some clocks, they feel its better to have it angle dependant then it will be good for any clock, the other point regards regulation, the clock in the clip had this, but its an add on many clocks get the winder first and may or may not ever get the regulator.As a last note , I see from the winding pulse that you are trying to achieve a very quick pulse at regular times so that it makes the clock easier to regulate, though without seconds sweep I think it would not make a damn of difference if you pulsed it every half hour with a two second burst it might be a few seconds faster for the first qua,rter then slower for the last fifteen, easy enough to compensate on the regulation.
I know that from what the winder is doing, it momentarily stops the clock as the winder moves and this is why such a short pulse is presently used.
Hello rq3 how do you mean? From Phil's post it can be done but it is a seperate unit, costing another few thousandsRampz, is there no "sustaining" or "maintaining" mechanism on a tower clock? Just curious.
Dave the failsafe plunger was remved during that clip, before christmass it blew the main fuse from being in stall position for some period, so they upgraded it to the timer version from the hall effect version and the vibration seems to be an issue now, what was happening, it was driving 400ms with each pulse and very quickly pulling the safety pin out.Yes Rampz, I get that it would be a real problem if the drive kept engaging and driving itself further and further away but it was not moving with a signal that should have made it move, It was being masked
Yes i think a PICaxe would be able to deal with that and run normally.That said, greater logical process can be used even given such a mean trigger arrangement.
Dave just the issue if this would suit all clcok speeds, with them all being different in their requirements, if you went this route it would still have to be triggered by some type of switch, or you could be all over the place with spring tentionstill I can't help thinking one second pulse every half hour is nothing in the grand scheme.
No Rampz , I meant that this is so basic it does not lift a sustaining lever to provide power for a few seconds like the human winder does, therefore the clock power is removed for the time that the spring lever arm takes to move it's travel.I miss understood you Phil, there isn't enough energy in the spring for striking 12, also the spring tension dictates the speed of the chimes, so works best to maintain it the best as possible
Yes i understand the snubber was tring to be a pulse extender to get around the motor seeming to be pulsing as it did, i wasn't involed at that time, i had to try and sort that out, previous to that it was a hall effect switch that drove the motor directly, then for no know reason they changed to a tilt switch and snubber network, but looking back thats where the problems started
Yes i felt the switch wasn't in the best place therefore wasn't being operated as designed, the tilt switch being used has 2 balls inside, we know because we destroyed on ethe other day, a smaller ball does the contact and a larger ball pushes it, it does mean there isn't much space for the off position, so at that point we tried a mecury version and it seemed to move with a lot less bounce
Each clock has a different requirement, some take 5 mins to reach 15 degrees some take 15 mins to reach the same, giving a pulse for 2 seconds every half an hour for example might have issues on some clocks, they feel its better to have it angle dependant then it will be good for any clock, the other point regards regulation, the clock in the clip had this, but its an add on many clocks get the winder first and may or may not ever get the regulator.
Hello rq3 how do you mean? From Phil's post it can be done but it is a seperate unit, costing another few thousands
Dave the failsafe plunger was remved during that clip, before christmass it blew the main fuse from being in stall position for some period, so they upgraded it to the timer version from the hall effect version and the vibration seems to be an issue now, what was happening, it was driving 400ms with each pulse and very quickly pulling the safety pin out.
Yes i think a PICaxe would be able to deal with that and run normally.
Dave just the issue if this would suit all clock speeds, with them all being different in their requirements, if you went this route it would still have to be triggered by some type of switch, or you could be all over the place with spring tension
David yep normally its the clock keeper that would go and adjust the clock say once a month etc, he had been doing that for years anyway, the clock time keeping alters with temperature anyway. Its maybe 3k to fit an electronic adjuster, nobody supplies them as matter of course when fitting winders not even Smith's the people in the video clipI do not see you at the moment doing it by electromagnetics . unless it is dirt cheap to make and fit.
David yep I have talked about it with them, need an accurate clock or the ability to calibrate it, say seconds per month, or use the rugby signal but there is an issue using that, church roof alarm block the signal so its often back to quartz unless I can find an alternative time base?There you go then, design a regulator using Picaxe chip, a real time clock or one of those that gets the rugby signal and keep it down to three hundred quid.
psst ... it moved to Cumbria - in 2007... or use the rugby signal
You could always use GPS aka GNSS ... but then you'd have to guard against spoofingso its often back to quartz unless I can find an alternative time base?
The system I had in mind for my Grandfather Clock, was to count the actual Ticks & Tocks. You seem to have already managed that part, even if by accident!sensor detects what hour it is by counting revolutions from a reed switch, the first revolution being the hour, then compare that to the time and then for the next hour the electromagnet is switched for so many minutes as ...
Count me in.Next project then "clock regulation" will do some thinking
Assuming the electromagnet arrangement, as seen in the previous Youtube video, is it strong enough to actually arrest the pendulum - as opposed to just influencing it (Do you know which specific product it is? - though it may be a bit big for my )...at this time the clock pendulum is stopped and held by a magnet until 12 hours plus or minus 1 hour to suit and the pendulum let swing again, for this there needs to be a sensor on the pendulum which happens in clock regulation.
I think the tilt switchIs this away to make the tilt switch more reliable?
Phil, they currently use large high power magnets attached to the pendulem, there is an linear actuator that slowly moves out when needed to catch the pendulem, its the magnet on the pendulem that ultimatly grabs the body of the electromagnet rather than through attraction from the elctromagnet itself, i can video a working example so you can see how it works?Assuming the electromagnet arrangement, as seen in the previous Youtube video, is it strong enough to actually arrest the pendulum - as opposed to just influencing it (Do you know which specific product it is? - though it may be a bit big for my )
It could possibly be done for your clock, but for the clocks i come across its often the case that the pendulem doesn't swing once per second more like upto once every 2 seconds or anywhere in betweenI was wondering ...
...could such an electromagnet be used as the sensor (when it's not activated!) - so as to generate a pulse for every 'tock'?
The other day we did do that with a glass mercury tilt switch on the test rig, we set the motor really slow and left it counting for 3 days, the tilt number was slightly higher than the turn number but it looked to work better than the ball style tilt switch, i have a pic somewhere of the count after 3 days.(You could do with one with a transparent casing, so you could see what they are )
David, so far we have gone with the closed going open and using a mercury switch, it seems to fall open really well, much better than the canister tilt switch.What did you do to stop the extra pulses? Any snubber across the switch? Just enough to keep the signal on for a couple of micros more?
Thanks for the update on that Phil,,, It will have been stolen by them, so I will call it by, the "Rugby Signal stolen by the Cumbrians" eh, eh, maybe sooner or later they will be shamed into giving it back!psst ... it moved to Cumbria - in 2007
You could always use GPS aka GNSS ... but then you'd have to guard against spoofing
Folk on here tend to swear by the DS3231 ... but if you happen to have a Wifi connection, you can use an ESP8266 and NTP.
The system I had in mind for my Grandfather Clock, was to count the actual Ticks & Tocks. You seem to have already managed that part, even if by accident!
Count me in.
I worked for a firm who had deployed "Rugby Clock Receivers" to dozens of sites, to paper over (some of) the deficiencies in their software (Windows 98 constantly lost time). They couldn't understand why it hadn't fixed the problem - until I discovered they were actually using the signal from Frankfurt instead .Thanks for the update