1. Home
  2. Electronics Repair
  3. 1950s "bearing " ?

1950s "bearing " ?

In a German Minifon P55 from the 1950s , pocket size wire tape recorder , even more surprisingly with a capabilityof 5 hours of continuous recording If disbelieving , Excellent pics etc of one on

formatting link

Anyway part of the complex drive mechanism is a steel barrel (with torsion sprung pulley at the centre so when it stops, the mechanism rotates backwards to reset the end-stop trigger position). The barrel has an axial 1.2 mm diameter pin each end that sits in an end anchor of a hollow brass cylinder each end . These cylinders have a sprung loaded pin inside them but there is no sign of any bearing material. Running lubricated there is too much resistance to rotation. Robbed a pair of 1.1mm balls from the tiny ring bearing inside a scrapped VCR pinch wheel. But there is only 1mm or so of springing at either end so again not free turning. What may have been in the ends in the 1950s.? I will next try rolling a ball of PTFE tape or a 1mm disk punched from PTFE but what would have been in there , bearing in mind German engineering so would not have been steel faces bearing crudely against steel at either end , surely?

Reply to
N_Cook
Loading thread data ...

Feeling with a needle , the sprung bits of steel are curved, I think, so original balls in there but fixed intentionally, or by rust, to the spring. For ease of assembly , they were probably spot welded together. Like the ferrite carying ends of springline/joy-spring reverb tanks the springs are then soldered to the brass cylinders at their fixed ends The problem was one of the anchors was slightly out of alignment , in one attitude , by a couple of degrees and so the rotating pin of the barrel was binding on the brass of an anchor.

Reply to
N_Cook

You really should get up some pictures. Your phone or $49 camera isn't real ly going to probably do it, throw these little gizmos on the flatbed scanne r and set it to high resolution. Then crop it down so it's not ten gigabyte s.

A couple years ago I got my hands on the print and a picture of this doodad , and actually it is cool as hell and a feat of engineering for it's time. I didn't realize it recorded that long, I was swept away by the compactness of it.

Have you actually taken the bearing apart yet ? There should be signs of wh at once was. I believe IIRC this thing was made in Germany right ? If so ex pect surprises.

Normally I would say it's a brass bearing and if it has a mount, turn it, b ut you seem to be talking about a rotating member.

I am having alot of trouble visualising it. That it backs up ? Like a one t ape answering machine would ? Doesn't sound right. I am not quite getting i t right now. If I had one in front of me that would be different I'm sure.

It is cool though to even have one of those things, is it older than you or not ? I have a scope that is older than me. You should take a shitload of pictures and throw them up on imageshack or dropbox or whatever. I bet a bu nch of people would love to see the mechanics of that thing.

Reply to
jurb6006

A couple years ago I got my hands on the print and a picture of this doodad, and actually it is cool as hell and a feat of engineering for it's time. I didn't realize it recorded that long, I was swept away by the compactness of it.

Have you actually taken the bearing apart yet ? There should be signs of what once was. I believe IIRC this thing was made in Germany right ? If so expect surprises.

Normally I would say it's a brass bearing and if it has a mount, turn it, but you seem to be talking about a rotating member.

I am having alot of trouble visualising it. That it backs up ? Like a one tape answering machine would ? Doesn't sound right. I am not quite getting it right now. If I had one in front of me that would be different I'm sure.

It is cool though to even have one of those things, is it older than you or not ? I have a scope that is older than me. You should take a shitload of pictures and throw them up on imageshack or dropbox or whatever. I bet a bunch of people would love to see the mechanics of that thing.

+++++

That Russian site has a massive collection of internal pictures. His is museum quality condition, my one is full of the grime of rust and spider piss or whatever after being in a shed for decades (before my ownership). Since posting that I've got the motor, governor, weird drive to spools and "counter" and tapehead lifter mechanism all working at a regular (strobed) rpm . But I'm now snowed under with other people's repairs. Next time I will try a wire and spools and then connect the tapehead to a modern player

Reply to
N_Cook

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.