Quote:
Originally Posted by ricard
I have (or had, not sure if I sold it or not) a Tandberg whose counter reset failed because some of the thin blades that press on the cams had cracked and fallen off (I think because the heat generated by the pilot lamp illuminating the counter had caused the plasticizer in the plastic to evaporate, leaving the material brittle).
I fixed this by drilling small holes in the bar which the blades emanate from and supergluing piano wire into the holes. This fixed the problem, but I'm not sure how long it will last, because the bar surely has suffered the same drying-out fate as the blades, and is now subjected to fairly large point forces where the piano wire enters the bar.
As can be seen in the picture, getting the holes in the right position was tricky and I didn't completely succeed, but on the whole the operation was a success.
(In the pictures, the first one shows the reset mechanism at rest, the second one shows it in operation, pressing against the cams.)
BTW, it has always struck me as interesting that the 'push-to-zero' mechanism didn't appear until the mid 1960s or so, before then, the counter reset mechanism on many machines at least used a thumbwheel mechanism which pulls all the digit wheels around until they reach 000 or 0000. I suppose everyone thought that was good enough until someone came around and invented the pushbutton reset. The thumbwheel reset seems more robust; I can't think of a single machine I've had where it's failed, whereas sticking pushbutton reset mechanisms are common.
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Hi Ricard,
I am not really familiar with piano wire, I know one can get it in different diameters, what sort of diameter did you use, is it easy to cut ? does it naturally straighten ?
Looking at my Telefunken counter there is hardly enough material to drill even a tiny hole, in this case would just try just supergluing the wire direct to the counter.
David