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Janta / Pearl Watch Cleaning Machine


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3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Which micro?

I used an ESP32, but I'm pretty sure something like a Pro Mini would be fine and less overkill. I just started this project so the micro board might change. Basically the cheapest you could find should control a watch cleaning machine I think. Just need PWM and probably 4 or so high/low GPIO

Here's a video link showing what I got it to do as of last night. Short video, and still too long:

https://youtu.be/gA0I5p6n5yo

 

 

hmm. I just took a cursory look and evidently the Arduino stuff has gone the way of the Raspberry Pi. Probably the cheap way to go is an ESP of some kind - they are still relatively cheap... so far I guess. The way things are going, next month they might be extinct too I suppose.
Remember the good old days?

Edited by Vinito
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More progress on some custom 3D printed baskets. These are half baskets and the dividers can be customized however I'd like. Seems like the 3D printer is more than capable of making a nice mesh. These baskets are for medium-large size parts so the side hole sizes don't matter that much. 

 

 

 

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That printer mesh on your new basket does look great! I'd like to see how you modeled & sliced that. Great job.

I need to try some resin in some cleaning fluids and see how it stands up to it. If that would work, some fine mesh baskets & stuff might be possible.

I was thinking on a design tweak on the 45º sides for the L-shaped lock at the top of the master cage. I'll try to sketch something up to show what I mean, but I think it would provide a way to print the whole smash with no supports maybe.

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I might have figured it out??... (how to slice for a mesh thing)

Height range modifier (make a low layer with different parameters), rectilinear infill, 0 top and bottom solid layers, play with infill percentage for mesh size.

Is that about right?

mesh.png

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On 12/26/2022 at 11:48 PM, Vinito said:

I used an ESP32, but I'm pretty sure something like a Pro Mini would be fine and less overkill. I just started this project so the micro board might change. Basically the cheapest you could find should control a watch cleaning machine I think. Just need PWM and probably 4 or so high/low GPIO

Here's a video link showing what I got it to do as of last night. Short video, and still too long:

https://youtu.be/gA0I5p6n5yo

 

 

hmm. I just took a cursory look and evidently the Arduino stuff has gone the way of the Raspberry Pi. Probably the cheap way to go is an ESP of some kind - they are still relatively cheap... so far I guess. The way things are going, next month they might be extinct too I suppose.
Remember the good old days?

Very cool for a new design cleaning machine. I could not imagine trying to retrofit all that into the Janta.

I had loads of fun retrofitting in the cycle timer circuit, there isn't a lot of extra room anywhere.

 

https://youtu.be/gA0I5p6n5yo

Edited by jimzzilla
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50 minutes ago, jimzzilla said:

I could not imagine trying to retrofit all that into the Janta.

I had loads of fun retrofitting in the cycle timer circuit, there isn't a lot of extra room anywhere.

Yeah, pretty clever what you did there. I don't know exactly what you did, but I could hear a clicking (relay?) which certainly gives it a kind of Rube Goldberg character to it that you get to experience every time you use it. That's cool. Importantly, it appears to work very well and I am impressed.

The bulky part of what I did was the motor and power supply. I don't know what power/motor the Janta uses, but since the working machine has existing power & motor, if you could just insert a little micro and H-bridge driver board it could probably fit. But your solution is great too and doesn't require any programming and all that. Possibly more long-term reliable as well.

I've been inspired by you guys to spend some time back at my 3D printers (after about a year hiatus) and have whipped out a couple simple watchmaking tools. I'm currently researching a bit to figure out what filament and even resin might be useful to withstand some chemicals and higher temps. I haven't decided which one yet, and not even certain what temps my printer is capable of reaching, but I'll figure it out soon. I at least do have an all-metal hot end, so at least I'm not starting from the bottom. But the summary is that I hope to leverage the 3D printer and maybe come up with some useful thing or things.

Thanks for the inspiration.

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14 hours ago, Vinito said:

I might have figured it out??... (how to slice for a mesh thing)

Height range modifier (make a low layer with different parameters), rectilinear infill, 0 top and bottom solid layers, play with infill percentage for mesh size.

Is that about right?

 

Yes this is exactly what I did.

 

So far from the chemical compatibility charts I've been looking at it seems like ABS, HIPS, or Nylon will hold up good enough to the common cleaning agents in most solutions. But there are always so many solutions everyone has to test against their own products. 

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4 hours ago, Vinito said:

I'm currently researching a bit to figure out what filament and even resin might be useful to withstand some chemicals and higher temps.

My rather simple experiment indicated that PLA does not react with the L&R cleaning/rinsing solutions.  HOWEVER, PLA has a low melting temperature, so the heater step will compromise a PLA basket.  I have ordered some ABS and will see how well it responds to both chemicals and heat.

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I am of a mind to try modeling up a basket of some kind and printing with a couple different resins tonight. I have lots of different solvents I could test them with but no specific watch cleaning solutions. That's probably good enough to get an idea anyway. I thought for temperature I might just try dunking in boiling water since it's pretty easy to control that temperature and be enough heat to compare to a drying cycle. Maybe? Let me know if that's probably not hot enough. I could just toss them in the oven if I need higher temp. What kind of heat is a drying cycle typically?

@LittleWatchShopgood luck with the ABS. I tried printing with that several years back (like around 2010 or so) and had nothing but misery and failure with it. It had a very strong yearning to curl off the table and wanted to delaminate badly, like it was a powerful hero feather trapped in the soul of the filament or something. Of course the subject has progressed a ton since then so maybe it was just my technology. If problems like this crop up, you could maybe try at least a heat lamp and cover it with a box or something. I hope you're successful.

I hope I'm not derailing this thread too much with all the printing talk. My thinking is that printing baskets and other parts for the cleaning machines is an appropriate fit.

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Just tested this in boiling water and it survived fine. You wash these off in IPA so it will take that at least. I'll test in some more chemicals in the next coming days.

This was just a generic test of a mesh basket in a resin printer, i.e. it's not made to fit anything or even function in a cleaner or anything. Just testing so far. If I find out something works, I could draw up some baskets if I had the needed dimensions to fit the Janta/Pearl machine if anybody wants some.

IMG_20221229_231015_272_1.jpg

@muddtt I got to thinking about your small baskets and the holder you made for it. Seems like that ought to work very well, and maybe better than the full baskets for safely segregating and washing your parts once you get used to it. Then again I've never used a watch cleaning machine even once so my assessment means absotively nothing.

Edited by Vinito
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15 minutes ago, Vinito said:

@muddtt I got to thinking about your small baskets and the holder you made for it. Seems like that ought to work very well, and maybe better than the full baskets for safely segregating and washing your parts once you get used to it. Then again I've never used a watch cleaning machine even once so my assessment means absotively nothing.

Yes, the fine mesh baskets are nice for holding smaller parts and screws. Although the 3D printed mesh can get tight enough for it, it is very nice to be able to just remove a basket full of parts and dump them into a tray slot. Your resin baskets look really good. 

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Some more testing and progress. I've typically aligned the top of the basket with the top of the heating chamber and ran it for about 5 minutes or less. Never had any issues running the ABS plastic that way. I tried pushing it deep into the heating chamber. This time it melted pretty good. I took some more measurements, and it looks like it can get to 100C in there.

So conclusions:

1) If using ABS don't put it deep into the chamber. It's plenty warm enough to evaporate any IPA even if it's not all the way in. 

2) Ideal is to print with even higher temp materials. That's what the photo is. The black basket on the right is printed from Nylon w/carbon fiber. Should be able to withstand 160c. Also made the basket a bit shorter since I'm using 1/2 baskets now. 

 

Happy new year!

 IMG_0524.thumb.JPG.93430542b08cc40c1fca4742abfb437d.JPG

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Hi @muddttI really love how creative you are for the basket, I am about to print the whole thing to adopt to my homemade watch cleaning machine, so far it has wobble issue.

I wonder what's the difference between your old basket(holes) and new one (vertical square)?

 

Could you please kindly share the inner basket please?

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53 minutes ago, Trey said:

Hi @muddttI really love how creative you are for the basket, I am about to print the whole thing to adopt to my homemade watch cleaning machine, so far it has wobble issue.

I wonder what's the difference between your old basket(holes) and new one (vertical square)?

 

Could you please kindly share the inner basket please?

https://www.printables.com/model/301422-rotor-for-pearl-watch-cleaning-machine

https://www.printables.com/model/301419-pearl-supreme-watch-cleaning-basket/files

 

All the files should be in those 2 links. The basket with the Tear drop holes is the same height as the original one that came with the machine. The one with the rectangles is a tiny bit shorter because I used half baskets so I didn't need the full height. 

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5 hours ago, muddtt said:

https://www.printables.com/model/301422-rotor-for-pearl-watch-cleaning-machine

https://www.printables.com/model/301419-pearl-supreme-watch-cleaning-basket/files

 

所有文件都應該在這兩個鏈接中。帶有淚滴孔的籃子與機器隨附的原始籃子高度相同。長方形的那個稍微短一點,因為我用了半個籃子,所以我不需要全高。 

thank you so much for sharing! Just printed the rotor 🙂 will test it on my machine these days, will update here. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

@jimzzillaI really appreciate your sharing on the wiring diagram 🙂, the  21E92 Cycle Timer is not avaliable in my country so I managed to find a alternative module that also featured with cycle timer, will share mine once I set it all up.

By the way, I am curious why your jar lip looks like that? did you make some modification as well? 😛

 

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Those cycle timers are available in the same configuration by many different manufactures. They are fairly common for use in machine automation and prototyping.

To your second question, are you talking about the plumbers test cap for 3" Pipe? the Janta jar lids do not seal completely,      the gaskets are horrible so to prevent evaporation and odors I fitted a plumbers test cap to seal the jars and not use the Janta lids. Just insert the test cap and tighten the wing nut until sealed.  Price is about $8.00 US  for 1 test cap.

Please post your results when you get your Janta modded, best regards Trey, James.

 

 

 

CAP1.jpg

CAP2.jpg

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Here are a couple more pic's to maybe help.

The first one is a factory detail of the cycle timer

and the second one is a template to mount the timer on to the back of the Janta.

The 5/8" hole at the bottom is where the wires get fed through

make sure to add a grommet.

 

 

21EW92 CYCLE TIMER DIAGRAM 4.png

SUPREME REAR COVER DETAIL (2).png

Edited by jimzzilla
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