Timer repair for Kevin's Apex washer

[d-jones]

Sorry I took so long to finish this up,but here goes.

The odd looking flat pieces of metal that tied the fine coil wire to the large power leads were going to be too difficult and risky to use again. They originally sat in slots in the black plastic block with a short piece of wire lead crammed into the hole below them, then they were sealed in place by melting the black plastic and spreading it over the top of the slot. You can see the way they were installed in reply 10 if you’re curious. That sort of thing seldom works more than once, and I was really worried about breaking the little wire leads. So I did this instead. It’s not pretty but it works, and with any luck, nobody will ever have a reason to be in there again. “Fingers crossed”

 

[d-jones]

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Finally reunited with the escapement, it sat here on the counter with power applied for about half an hour while I watched it work. After Jon's comment above regarding the spring loaded gear in the escapement I wanted to be sure I had it right. Thankfully, everything seemed to be fine, so I decided it was time to finish putting it back together.

[this post was last edited: 2/2/2013-04:34]

 

[d-jones]

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And now, after all that, it’s ready for Kevin to pick up at last. It’s only been what, two and a half months? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I sure hope Kevin wasn't in a hurry.

</span>

 

[fido]

Having repaired a few relatively modern timers I can appreciate the attention to detail and dexterity needed to do this repair, congratulations!

 

[toploader55]

You have the Patience of a Saint

Two words come to mind :

Talent and Skill. Incredible, Just Incredible.

Bravo.

 

[jetcone]

David

How did you attack the staking, did you use fine needle nose pliers to pinch the staking?

And McMasterCarr lists up to 36AWG if anyone is interested. WireSource on Amazon sells 39AWG.

jon

Now Kevin you've really got to throw your butt into gear!!! Wash In next April??

[this post was last edited: 2/2/2013-08:21]

 

[Unimatic1140]

Very impressive David, I find those little black Ingraham motors fail all the time on machines that sit un-powered for a long time. It seems the key to keeping them running is actually using them.

I usually replace them with more modern timer motors from the 60's and 70s, but sometimes the escapement mounting has to be modified for them to fit. This will be a very good reference for the future!

Thanks for taking the time to document this.

 

[d-jones]

Thanks for all the comments, everyone!

I have to admit though, when I first offered to fix the Apex's timer I had no idea it would lead to rewinding a motor. But when it turned out that the motor was bad I figured I'd at least look into it. After all, it was already dead, so it certainly couldn't hurt to look. Things just sort of took off from there, and as it turns out, the motor was only "mostly dead."

 

One of the main reasons I wanted to try this is that original parts, and even suitable replacements, are steadily disappearing from parts shelves all over the country. Some are being purchased and used, but quite a few are simply being thrown away under the mistaken assumption that nobody wants them anymore. I've encountered this several times myself. I'll walk in to an appliance shop that's been around for decades and tell them what I'm looking for, only to hear the guy tell me that I should have stopped by a couple of years ago. They had boxes and boxes of that stuff that they threw away. This is going to lead to a serious parts shortage one of these days, and for some machines it already has. Consequently, in order to keep our vintage machines going we're going to have to find ways to work around this problem. Some are already heading in that direction with discussions about having certain parts made, and for some parts that really is the only solution. But for quite a few parts, if we can find ways to repair them and keep them going a bit longer then we've scored a minor victory of sorts. As you can see, none of the tools I used in this repair are high tech or all that hard to come by, and yet they worked out. So anyone else that wanted to do this shouldn't have too much trouble assembling everything they'd need. Some of you may already have ideas about ways to improve the process.

 

Jon - The staking had originally been applied with a center punch, creating a small dimple in the motor housing that extended over the top plate(the one with the gears mounted to it) in four places. I had to use very strong pointed needle nose pliers to bend these out of the way. They could have been reinstalled with a punch, but instead I used a very small hammer to bend the housing above the top plate inward slightly at each of the previous stake points. It seemed to work. I hope this helps. Are you thinking of having a go at this with one of your timer motors?

 

[revvinkevin]

I found break, after break, after break...... in fact OVER 1

 

 

YAY David!   The only thing I can do is echo what others have said, very impressive and awesome job!!   

 

I would be afraid to tackle something like this, mostly because I've never done anything like it.

 

I can't thank you enough, but I'll try. 

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Kevin

 

[d-jones]

Kevin

You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome!

 

[badgerdx]

I have to add my "WOW". My old industrial arts teacher would have "Bust his buttons" over you. No doubt.

 

[jetcone]

Yes David

You have inspired us , I am going to have a go at it now. I rebuilt two escapements last summer first time I've ever done that. And this looks like fun. I have ordered the wire today. I'll need to get a scale next, I have a digital scale I wonder if that will be accurate enough, it only goes up to 200 grams.

I think Robert is going to try it too.

 

[d-jones]

Jon - if you're going to tackle this then let me pass on a little more info that might be useful. The plastic spool is kept centered in the motor housing by twelve metal posts. Six are mounted to the floor of the housing, while six are mounted to the top plate. All are mounted in pairs spaced 120 degrees apart, and each one has a small metal peg protruding from the exposed end that fits into a corresponding hole on the opposite plate. I'm pretty sure that when these were made the metal plates with all the posts would have been assembled on the plastic spool prior to being installed in the motor housing. Then the lower plate was riveted in place through the bottom of the housing. Now because of those rivets, the lower plate will stay behind fixed to the floor of the housing and only the upper plate with its six posts will come out. Be very careful that you keep that upper plate level as you withdraw it from the center of the plastic spool. The fit is quite snug, and if one of those posts should become bent then reassembly will be difficult. They're too thick to bend in the middle, but you'll want to watch out for the spot were they mount to the upper plate. If one or more of them should get off kilter then its little peg won't line up with its hole. Though I suppose that if that were to happen you might be able to remove the rivets that hold the lower posts in place and go from there, but I'm getting ahead of myself now. I should have taken a picture or two of all that but somehow I completely overlooked it. At least now you know, so you'll be prepared for it. Best of luck to you.

 

PS. If you look at reply 39 you can see the ends of two of the posts I'm talking about. They're staked into place in the top plate with a rather crude x pattern. 

 

[Unimatic1140]

I'm curious how critical the amount of copper wire rolled onto the spool is? Of course too little and the rotor will not turn, but if you added lets say 25% more, would it affect the rotation of the rotor at all? These synchronous clock motor rotors turn at the same speed because of the 60 cycle alternating current, that is why an analog/mechanical electric clock keeps such accurate time, either they work or they do not work at all but they are never slower or fast, always just right.

 

[jetcone]

With synchronous motors

they always went by the number of winds on the spool, thats how they maintain accuracy. Clocks have to be very accurate but our timer motors not so much I think. I used to have a book on how to rewind small fractional horsepower motors, I'll dig for it , it may have a section on synchronous motors.

Dave, thanks for the tips!! I thought the stakes you removed were those post tops, no? I see them there, they are cross hatched so there are 4 more under the gearing??

jon

 

[gansky1]

I have a couple of these motors sitting around that no longer work as well. Looks like we have a summer project!

Beautiful documenting of this procedure, thanks for the time and effort to share with everyone!

 

[kb0nes]

Ideally one would replace the winding with the same number of turns to keep the coil inductance fairly constant. I don't think a minor variance will result in any harm. Too much or too little winding may result in the motor torque performance changing. I believe that as Robert states, the motors are synchronous so their rotational speed is determined by the number of poles and the line frequency. Variation in winding fill won't change this.

David's use of the scale to weight the wire was very clever since he had to deal with all the breaks making turn counting or measuring wire length difficult. If the length could be measured (or the number of turns counted) as the wire is payed off the bobbin then this would be a more accurate way of determining the amount of wire to wind back on.

 

[recyclewasher]

and don't FORGET!...

the all important WOODEN CLOTHESPIN and 'modified' COAT RACK for the bobbin improv...

gotta love this project..

 

[d-jones]

Jon - Those two stakes you see are indeed the ends of two of the metal posts. Each of them has a companion sitting just out of sight, and then two more are completely hidden from view under the gear assembly. I didn't tamper with them at all. The stakes I had to remove were in the housing itself and held the top plate in place by gripping its edge in four places. Once you get into your project you'll quickly see what I'm talking about.

 

David - A modified coat rack would be funny enough, but that device isn't a coat rack. It's actually a "bottle tree," meant to display colored glass bottles outside were the sunlight can shine through them. You simply slip the bottles over the wires and they sit there upside down. My sister gave it to my dad for Christmas this past year because he has lots of colored glass bottles he won't get rid of. When pressed on the issue he simply replies "but they're neat," and then holds one up to the light to admire the colored glass. Again, you'd have to know my dad.

 

As for the use of the scale to determine how much wire to use, Phil is right. Counting turns wasn't practical with all the breaks in the wire, but if you wanted to go that route, there are devices you can purchase that are made for winding coils and they come with a built in counter. If I was planning to do a lot of these I'd probably buy one. A search on Google using the term "coil winder" will lead you to them.

 

[d-jones]

How much wire?

Robert - I think the little motors would be pretty tolerant of minor variations in the number of turns, but I don't have a clue what 25% more wire than needed would do. I'll just defer to Phil's answer above.

 

Considering how many turns of wire there are in these coils, into the thousands actually, weighing them is probably a better option than counting turns. I think you'd be surprised at how accurate weighing can be with the right scale. When rewinding coils like these that use such fine wire, the guys at the DWP here in LA always go by weight. They say it just isn't worth the hassle of counting.