aluminum tape again
Auto brake light
Back hoe log splitter
Black tape and PVC cement
Broken gas can cap
C-band dish solar furnace
Making a Cheap battery State Of Charge gauge more accurate
Cleaning the corroded buss bars from a Prius battery pack
Fixing small plastic gears
Forever solar desk lamp
How I splice audio cables
IMA motor coil shift in collision
Insight Battery pack turbo cooler
Insight Oil Pan second chance
Lifting the battery safely
making a ducted blower from a computer fan
Making an isolated hall effect current sensor with ring terminals
making a heavy workbench mobile
Making a simple IMA bypass connector from an old pack relay board
Making some custom solar panels
Measuring resistance of less than 1 ohm
Motorizing a snow blower chute
Put your exercize to good use?
Quick way to make a connector for checking the subpacks
Reading the blink codes
Real time external MPG display
Rear view Video cameras
Solar headlight
Soldering iorn degausser
Some uses of laser pointers
Taking Video of the dash
Those useful Prius subpacks
Using digital caliper to measure hole center to center distance
weed whacker motor converted to bicycle motor
When cleaning the EGR does not fix the hesatation
Where do you find high quality alligator clips?
Handy use for Aluminum tape.

Fixing small plastic gears

Fixing small plastic gears
Armatron disassembled

I pulled out my old favorite toy, the Armatron, to show a young friend. It did not work. The gripper would not work. I set out to fix it.
After taking it apart the wrong way,by trying to disassemble the arm a section at a time, I soon figured out the right way, first remove the whole arm from the shoulder. The arm has two screws holding the square Armatron cover to the main shoulder area. Once that is removed, the two screws with big washers at the main shoulder joint are to be removed next. Then gently bend out the thin plate from the right side of the arm(side with no gear rack). This will allow you to totally disconnect the arm from the body. The arm sections are easily disassembled by removing the screws and covers. Don't forget where each shaft goes, and watch out that the shafts don't all fall out when you remove the covers.Some of the shafts are used in a not intuitive way.
This is probably the most mechanically complex toy ever made,and is a really chalenging take it apart/put it back together puzzle.
The base and control joysticks all are driven by a single motor. each axis of the joystick has two speeds and a neutral.
If there is an interest, I can expand this armatron examination, and get into the whole drive train, as the gear shifting and power take off is really interesting.
The problem was discovered,I found that a 10 tooth gear had split, and the gear was spinning on the shaft. I took a brass rod and drilled then bored a hole in it that was .001" smaller than the gear OD. Then I turned the brass rod OD so I had a thin brass tube. I tapered the inlet side, then pressed it over the broken gear. Then I pressed the gear back onto the shaft. The gear is still split, but will not slip on the shaft and the grippers now work properly.
An old friend with a home built CNC machine made me a replacement. Thanks Bill, my toy is fixed.