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| Building the Minimag |
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| Bogstandard:
At last, I have started to be able to move on this little project. For anyone who doesn't know what this is about, I suggest you have a look at this http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=4168.0 I received the kit about ten days ago, but building it has been held up by a couple of jobs in the shop and a few personal things. I am not building yet, I am going to introduce you to the kit first. I have got to say, this is a VERY complete kit, absolutely everything you need to make the unit except for a bit of superglue, a dab of loctite, and of course a bit of machining. It is made up from a couple of different standards of fixings, all metric with just one bit of ME threads. But I suppose this is to take advantage of the cost of parts involved as it might be both cheaper and easier to source something like metric bearings and fasteners rather than imperial ones. The plans are also marked up in both standards, where needed. Things like that don't bother me at all, just take a bit more care as you do things, one good part at a time. There is even a little bar of tufnol (or something similar), spring steel flat and a couple of tungsten rivet contacts supplied for making the points setup, as I said, everything is included. The lighter in the shot gives some sort of scale. I was at one time going to make one of these from scratch, from the book by the late Bob Shores, but the things that always put me off was winding the coil and making the punches for all the laminations (both coil and magneto). For a one off, a great deal of work. No trouble on that score with this stuff. The coil is a work of art, fully potted, moulded to shape and sealed, not like a lot of model coils I have bought and used before, with their outer casings made from rolled cardboard, then all potted up with a soft wax like substance. This one really is the bees knees. The strong magnet rotor is the same quality, fully potted and machined to size. The laminations, are again, very well made, crisp cut, and on my kit, supplied as two sets, one left hand, one right hand. The final main bits are the two roller bearings for the rotor shaft to run in. The main part of the machining is making up the support block from the lump of ali supplied. If care is taken, and the instructions followed, this should hold no terrors for anyone. It looks difficult, but if broken down into stages, it will emerge from the block like magic. I will be following, as close as possible, the pre production build sequence and plans that Julian has provided me with. He has requested that I show no dimensions on this pre production build, just in case things change a little before it is released to the public. I fully agree with what he has asked me to do. I will also be taking it a little deeper, giving a few hints and tips as I go along, so it should make healthy reading even for the novice, even if they are not needing one of these units. I will be doing this in the same regime as I am building the flame licker. Most days, with a little luck, four hours work, if not, then two. I expect it to take around four to five days to complete, as I am a fairly slow but meticulous builder. I do hope you follow along and enjoy it. Bogs |
| ozzie46:
Got my seat picked out and patiently waiting. :coffee: :coffee: Ron |
| Dean W:
I think I'll watch! I don't have a need for one (now), but they are kind of like a black magic box. Everyone wants to know the trick to the magic. : ) John, I think he has an error line in the drawing you show. The line that goes between the two uprights, on top of the partially angled/partially bored piece that sticks out the front. Maybe that line shouldn't be there. That is, if the top surface it lies on is flat. He may want to know, (or I'm mistaken). Dean |
| madjackghengis:
Hi John, glad to see the beginning of this :whip: I was looking at what Bob Shores has put out as well, I believe I would like to be able to end up with one for the radial engine in the end, I think it can be done with a distributer attachment and some gearing. I want to see how small this one you're building works out, and make a guess at whether I can use the basic principles. I hope you can give some idea of relative size when it is all together. cheers, mad jack |
| jim:
i'll be following this with interest. |
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