Making the smallest Nipkow NBTV, THE NIPKOW NIPPER.

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Postby Viewmaster » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:26 pm

AncientBrit wrote:Just a thought Albert, but could you use a heated wire to melt a hole in the film rather than trying to drill it out?

Heat applied around the middle of the (stainless steel?) wire conducts through to the tip.

You would also need some form of X-Y manipulator to position the 'cutter'.

I suppose you would be left with a small collar of displaced material which would need removing.

Regards,

Graham


I have considered the heating method, Graham, and to mention a terrible pun, "It is on the back burner." :lol:

The hot wire could be positioned through a piece of mica to prevent heat loss, the scanning hole images in the film being positioned under my microscope.

But at present I consider that it is easiest to pick up the existing image of the faint scan holes on the very underexposed film images as the datum for making holes right through the film rather than use an XY positioner system. We are dealing with very tight tolerances on holes only .004" dia and where a single NBTV picture pixel is only .004" wide.

I might even try out about a 1/64 " length of the .004 dia stainless steel as a punch when it arrives. :shock:
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Postby AncientBrit » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:51 pm

Okay Albert,

Cheers,

Graham
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Postby Viewmaster » Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:51 pm

Just an update for those following this Nipper saga....
I now have all the .004 holes cut through the film and the results are improved.

But the big problem is still lack of sync so no point in posting any video yet. The flywheel greatly helps but it seems slightly out of balance so more work required there. The motor drive etc may need attention too.

You may like to see all the experimental cutters/punches I have tried in order to get an accurate diameter and correctly placed 32 scan holes. The best one is a tiny, tiny 1" long needle I found on the internet which has the narrowest tapered point of all. Much better than 'stoning' my own.

The pad thickness idea mentioned before worked well in controlling the holes diameter, but made one terrible error when I used wrong one on a hole and cut oversized hole....now filled in with black marker and recut. :shock:

If I had had a first class, accurately focusing close up, 120 camera none of this would have been required of course.
Attachments
cutters and punches.jpg
cutters and punches
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Postby holtzman » Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:29 am

Wow what an impessive needle collection... BTW, if taken out of context, it looks pretty scaring :twisted:

Why not to try to attach a separate sync disc with larger holes or slits from the side of the flywheel?
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Postby gary » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:07 am

holtzman wrote:Wow what an impessive needle collection... BTW, if taken out of context, it looks pretty scaring :twisted:


Albert - the Sweeney Todd of NBTV! ;-)
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Postby Viewmaster » Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:27 pm

holtzman wrote:Wow what an impessive needle collection... BTW, if taken out of context, it looks pretty scaring :twisted:


You should try using them under a microscope. That puts 5 years on yer life :lol:
I haven't cleaned out all the holes properly yet either. One has to be so careful as the original datum image of the hole is no longer in view having cut holes through them so any mistakes, and the correct hole position is lost.

holtzman wrote:Why not to try to attach a separate sync disc with larger holes or slits from the side of the flywheel?


Because, as mentioned before, I wish the Nipper, if at all possible, to completely copy his bigger brother where the sync holes are all part of the Nipkow disk.
I do have a 32 tooth gear to use for seperate sync but hope it won't be required.

The photographed sync holes do seem to produce good stable pulses on the 'scope.
It's the mechanics /electronic side that is the trouble I think.

Along this line I have just realised that the motor drive supply is on the same line as the 4046pll supply. :shock:
So that could well be part of the trouble?

Gary, Sweeny Todd killed others. I think like cutting my own throat at times in the middle of all this. :wink:
You need a broad CV for Narrow band TV :lol:
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Postby Viewmaster » Mon Apr 02, 2012 6:30 pm

I cannot quite get good sync using the film sync images so I put a strobe disc on a bigger flywheel and it now syncs, although a slight vertical float.

Also the black horizontal frame line is a V shape so still probems here. I shall put in a switch to cut from stobed flywheel to image sync to examine what is happening.

I spent hours trying to sort out a fault and found a transistor in my sync volts detector was faulty....gave a signal but poor o/p which I didn't spot
on my little 'scope....but the 4046pll spotted it and went on strike :lol:

My CD player also gave intermittent o/p too which I thought for some time was my Nipper circuits u/s but it was the CD player :shock:

I have tried 2 diffusers in the luxeon light path but still cannot get rid of very bad centre flaring.
I am thinking maybe it's infra red from the luxeon being picked up on my mini video camera which is very close to the light source.

I have ordered a small infra red blocking filter to try this out. It's only 9mm square so is cheap !

More anon.
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Postby Viewmaster » Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:29 pm

Further to my last posting.......
After I ordered a small IR blocking filter I found on the internet that Luxeons emit very little Infrared, so dissapointed, I didn't expect any improvement on the white flaring which is destroying my blacks.

I received the little filter this morning and just held it in the luxeon light path. The results were unbelievable as you can see from the photo of the brighter flaring and then with the filter in place at the bottom of the photo.
Wonderfully, it does not reduce the normal whites of the pictuire so the Nipper's contrast has just shot up.
That's the best fiver I have ever spent. :lol:
Attachments
transmission.jpg
IR blocking filter transmission curve
transmission.jpg (60.52 KiB) Viewed 14329 times
IR blocking.jpg
With and without filter
IR blocking.jpg (45.34 KiB) Viewed 14329 times
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Postby Viewmaster » Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:28 pm

I still have a slightly 'bouncy' picture still but this hasn't anything to do with the Nipper's disk, but elsewhere. But the picture is improving now with very good contrast since the IR filter has been permanently installed.
The camera output syncs perfectly with the Nipkow without any moving black bars we sometimes see when a Nipkow is shot with a video camera.

Now in the process of tidying it all up after curing a bad earth return fault etc.
Then I shall video it running and together with a write up, will put it all on a section of my web site.
I will give you the link then so you may see the Nipper at play. :lol:

It would be really nice eventually if I could then get my Edikow machine going at long long last (!) and feed this into the Nipper. :shock:
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Postby Viewmaster » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:57 pm

Viewmaster wrote:
Now in the process of tidying it all up


Here's the little Nipper starting to tidy up and putting his veroboard toys back into the toy box ! :lol:
Now for all the short circuits to appear. :shock:
Attachments
Back in the box.jpg
Back in the box.
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Postby gary » Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:05 pm

Viewmaster wrote:
Now for all the short circuits to appear. :shock:


In fact - it looks like short circuit (sort of):
Attachments
shortcircuit[1].jpg
shortcircuit[1].jpg (227.83 KiB) Viewed 14224 times
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Postby Viewmaster » Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:12 pm

Oh damn it Gary, I've forgotten to put the caterpillar tracks on Nipper.
They will have to revolve at 750RPM I guess. :wink:
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Postby gary » Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:18 pm

Viewmaster wrote:Oh damn it Gary, I've forgotten to put the caterpillar tracks on Nipper.
They will have to revolve at 750RPM I guess. :wink:


Fast little nipper! :D
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Postby Harry Dalek » Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:00 pm

Viewmaster wrote:
Viewmaster wrote:
Now in the process of tidying it all up


Here's the little Nipper starting to tidy up and putting his veroboard toys back into the toy box ! :lol:
Now for all the short circuits to appear. :shock:


Love the look of it Albert ,imagine trying to case it ! in the years to come don't pull it to bits for parts its one fantastic looking thing .
:D
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Postby Viewmaster » Mon May 21, 2012 11:22 pm

The Nipkow NIpper is nigh finished and a write up and video of it can be seen here........
http://www.retinascope.co.uk/nipkow.html
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the video link (It takes a few moments to buffer in WMP).

I filmed it running with my little camera and the large black flickering bars are caused by it and ARE NOT in the Nipper's monitor.

The Nipper's monitor shows the NBTV picture x10 larger that the actual image on the film disk (in the postage stamp), and is over twice the size of the picture seen in the club's 12 inch Nipkow disk. Not too bad for a Nipper.

BTW, the very old 'Nipper' shown on the new Nipper's monitor is yours truly.

So except for a few more minor adjustments my Nipkow Nipper saga is ended..... Phew. :shock:

Now back my Edikow machine saga... Phew, phew, phew ! :lol:
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