It’s like building a cabinet,…“I think I’ll add a 1/4 here”… then nothing else lines up until you go through the whole thing and make the other adjustments to accommodate that one 1/4" change. It’s all good, just breath…In through the nose and out through the mouth 
BTW Bill, My filter accessories and proof grade materials came in today, the printer got separated from the other 2 packages, it’s suppose to be here tomorrow
@lostchild45, I often hear people get the printer first, but not the accessories package with it. Then they have to wait for the tray and the power cord.
Tonight I went ahead and swapped the gears back into the previous frame (no bearings). I want to compare it again to the results I had with the fidget-spinner bearings (no lubrication).
If I do go back to using bearings again, I will need to adjust the frame a bit to make them easier to work with. They are very troublesome to adjust and install.
Ordered the Dry Moly, just waiting for it to arrive. I will probably go ahead and cut new gears, so I can compare and contrast with them.
If you don’t want to wait, head out to an auto parts store (Advanced, O’Rielly, etc) - they carry the CRC Dry Moly Lube spray. About $11.
I might want to do that… looks like it is not arriving until Saturday.
Also, I got up this morning and the clock was still running. So the bearings were causing more resistance; it never ran all night with them (I will have to look back at my notes, the bearings without lubrication might still be fine.)
I really do think the friction is more from gear-to-gear contact at this point.
Bearings: You might want to look for a smaller bearing that has a flange on the outer race. This will make assembly easier ( just push it into the hole until the flange is flush. Something like this.
A smaller bearings tend to have lower friction, all else equal. Your load is low so a skate bearing is overkill. Smaller OD takes less room so which seems to be a challenge. The flange helps make sure it is co-axle with the gear.
Also, consider buying without seals or removing the seals if that is not an option) (I did not search long enough to know if this model comes without seals) and consider removing all the grease and going with a very tiny amount of very light oil (or no lube at all). Seals are not needed in a clock and add drag, likewise, heavy grease is not needed.
That is awesome. Size is not as much a problem. I can deal with the size. But the flange is exactly what I need! I have a problem keeping them in place, but the flange would mostly solve that issue. If I can get them thinner, that would help, but I still need the internal diameter of 8mm to be able to fit the cross-axle into it.
Something like this might work:
But I am going to do some more research on this. There are so many more options than I knew. If I could find these without lubrication, that appears to have the least resistance at low speeds.
those look like they would work.
Well, the clock set a new record last night, it has been running for around 20 hours and still ticking. (Note: This is without bearings or lubricated gears.) This is with the previous frame that I ground the graphite into. I feel like the graphite is getting more effective with time.
I had laid down for the night and my mind was starting to slow down when I thought about all of this. Something you might ponder as well. Maybe…the builds just need a little while to run, let everything get seated and working together. Something like letting the foundation settle.
I am thinking the same thing. I think it just needs to be “broken in” and let the pieces work together.
It ran for a new record of 24 hours before I barely touched it and it started running again. In 24 hours it ran about 6 minutes fast, but I am not going to adjust it yet. I am trying to see how accurate it is without being adjusted. If it changes on its own I will know adjusting it is just like chasing my own tail…
The clock stopped again after 3 hours, but this time I think I see why. It looks like the hour-gear was bound up with the minute-gear, so I might have them just slightly too close to each other. I will keep an eye on it to see if that it why it is stopping. (Lubricating these gears might solve the issue too.)
I haven’t given up on the bearings yet, but here is a version without them (if anyone is interested.)
Glowforge Clock v1.4.5.zip (490.1 KB)
I think this has been my most successful version so far.
Nice work
The new bearings and Dry Moly should arrive today. I will need to remove the lubrication from the bearings (learned that last time).
I plan to remove all the gears and coat them with the Dry Moly to see if that helps with the gear binding that sometimes occurs. (I can’t wait to try this out… I hope the delivery isn’t too late in the evening.)
Don’t know if it’s day after Thanksgiving thing or not but my mail was an hr late today. FedEx is suppose to be delivering some stuff today as well today and it still isn’t here yet. Oh BTW Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you bill.m.davis…and everyone else following these post
The top of my clock is 69" from the floor. With that distance my clock was able to run 36 hours (with some room to spare) before rewinding! Now it still stopped periodically and had to be “touched” to start it running again, but the timing is pretty good and it ran for over 36 hours on the clock.
The bearings and lubricant arrived, but I didn’t have much time to play with them. The bearings are TINY.
I knew the measurements when I bought them; I just didn’t think about it… I should be able to implement them with minimal changes to the frame. But I need to find a way to remove the lubrication first. (My wife told me not to touch her “good” nail-polish remover.)
I hope to at least get the clock taken apart tomorrow to apply the Dry Moly and see if that stops the gear binding that I think is occasionally stopping the clock. (And it should also make the gears look more metallic, I think.)
The type and viscosity of the lubrication in the “as
shipped” bearing is highly significant and represents a
considerable drag inside the bearing. I recommend that
the grease or oil be soaked out with white spirit.
My technique is to soak and rinse the bearings in the
solvent multiple times, refreshing the solvent each time,
draining them on white tissue paper in between. Initially,
the tissue is stained, but after several repeats, the dried
tissue is quite clean, so virtually little additional grease or
oil is being extracted, even for shielded bearings. The
solvent used should be white spirit. I always rotate the
bearings in the solvent at fairly high speed to assist in the
agitation.
Here is a copy and paste from the book.
Here is a link to White Spirits from Amazon
Let your wife know her nail polish remover is safe.
Yes, I read that same part of the book. I did more research and found that nail-polish remover is made of “white spirits”.
so the nail polish remover is BACK on the chopping block
Since I had to take the clock apart again to apply the Dry Moly to the gears, I am trying to take pictures as I reassemble it. So there should be some more instructions coming! (But this is by far my most complicated build so far, and not for the “faint of heart”; this definitely takes some dedication.)
