Well, like anything developed by imagination, but made from real materials,
there's bound to be some problems. How's the definition go... "Civil
Engineers build things that aren't supposed to move, but do... and
Mechancial Engineers build things that are supposed to move, but don't..."
(I'm still trying to figure out what electrical engineers do...)
I'm sure there's plenty of opportunity for mechanical problems. It was
looking really good when I went by on Friday... they had display set up
with the feeder box paritally open, and I know someone was inspecting the
internals, when another hit the 'go' button... jammed it on one side, which
put a nasty gink in the tape. I think there's a non-technical term for
that type of situation...
Either way, it's a slick idea... so much that I came home and made a small
winch drum on a stepper/encoder to 'tweak' the length of a
long-wire/sloper. One of these days I'll get a clothesline pulley mounted
out on my back shed and string it up, to see if it wether it'll play or
not. I know I don't have the materials, tools, skills, or patience to do
what the Fluid Motion guys did. I think they deserve a tip-of-the-hat for
their efforts, and hope it takes off well for 'em. To bad they're so
pricey- I'd like to play with one...
DK :-)
Bill wrote:
>Hope that the "demo" I saw at Dayton got fixed. I was there at a bad time,
>when the beryllium or whatever tape was Not feeding properly and was all
>jammed up. The guys were trying to get it fixed without tearing it down.
>Maybe they waited till nightfall. And how much disadvantage to the fixed
>element spacing to optimal element spacing ? Is it correct for one band ???
Stuart wrote:
>Thanks Dave, a very nice write up, but then as you describe the reeling out
>of the tape, I could not help but think of the DLT tape drives where a
>finger hooks onto the end of the tape and pulls it out to thread the
>machine, except that they had troubles with the mechanical reliability of
>the mechanism to advance the tape to load. Not only in the DLT machine, but
>in its predecessor cartridge tape drive on older computers. They did not
>solve the problem they changed the name of the machine. Hi! Well, I hope
>the stepper motors are something as reliable as Ham M rotors over the years
>of ice, snow, cold, heat and wind vibration.
>73,
>Stuart K5KVH
>
>
73's from KW0D Dave in LeClaire, Iowa
|