A couple of rainy nights ago my recently purchased Tung Lin
bottle generator failed me. It had been faithfully working
in whatever wet weather nature could throw at it.
It turns out the drive wheel was just plastic (it looked
like blued steel), and it had worn smooth. I had learned
that where there's friction between two moving parts, there
should be a fair difference in hardness between the parts,
to minimize wear. I guess there's not enough of such a
difference in hardness between a plastic drivewheel and
a rubber tire.
So I set about to put a metal drivewheel on it, from one
of my old Union units. I found a good match, but the
top of it was too thick -- there wasn't enough spindle
coming out the top, on which to thread the retaining nut.
So I countersunk the inside of the drivewheel, dug out
the old Foredom flexible shaft, chucked-in a rotary file
and flattened the countersink. After all that, it fit
like the original.
What a lot of work for a $25, almost-new generator.
But it's working beautifully again.
cheers,
Tom
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