Jerry Feather

I stopped by the machinist's on tuesday to check on any possible progress on the new caps, even tho it was before the two weeks predicted, and they said possibly this thursday or friday--today. I am expecting a call from them to come over and see the first one run and to give it my blessing for the full run, which I hope will be done early next week. If I can remember to do so I'll take my camera and take a picture of what they have produced.

Jerry Feather

Close, but no Cigar, yet. I stopped by the machine shop this afternoon and they were working on converting my drawing to one in their computer for use in the CNC Lathe. It looks like monday before they will have one turned out for me to approve. I was, however, able to explain a couple of things about my drawing.

Jerry Feather

Here are the first two newly designed Coolant Sensor Caps. They still need to be machined to hex around the top, and I am going to do that myself. I have to make a jig to go in my rotary table in the mill then machine the flats. I might work on that this evening.

MjRocket

This is looking good, coming along nicely.

Chris Lockhart

Looking good so far Jerry.

Jerry Feather

I have the sealing ring glued to the underside of the top ring on the sender, so this item would function just fine the way it is. As to the flats around the top of the cap, last night it occured to me that I doubt that anyone has ever installed one of the original senders with a huge spanner and even that no one has likely had to use such a tool to remove one of these.

A thought I have previously had is that it might be better with knurling around the top rather than being hex shaped. However knurling on this hard plastic must be cut in rather than rolled in as with softer plastics, or aluminum. Then I woke up last night thinking about cutting the flats on these with the jig that I made yesterday and was dividing the circle into sixes flats, again, and was thinking what it would be like to divide the circle into seven or 8 flats, just for the fun of it.

Then it came to me that the better way to finish the tops of these caps was to divide the circle into several more segments and simply mill rounded slots (verticle grooves) several places around the top to form it in a finger grip fashion rather than hex. I think that is what I am going to do, unless anyone else can convince me that a huge spanner is likely to be needed.

Jerry Feather

Here are some pictures of the current status. I need to drill some holes in the flat bar to ut it together and mount it in the rotary table and then I can do the milling. I also need to find the correct washer for the top to hold the caps to the jig. I'll have the finished batch of caps tomorrow, I think.

Shawn Stanford

Why not just cut some vertical grooves into the rim of the cap and call it a day?

Jerry Feather

That's what I tried to say I was going to do; but thanks, Shawn. (Edited it)

Shawn Stanford

Oh! Sorry, I see that now. That last paragraph didn't register on my brain the first time I read it.

Disregard. Carry on!

Imo000

Or just leave them as is.

DKWalser

The fear is that "as is" the smooth plastic doesn't offer enough grip to hand tighten the unit sufficiently for it to seal reliably.

Imo000

Then send a surgical glove with it!

Jerry Feather

I drilled the flat bar and put the jig together then lined it up in the center of my rotary table and cut the flutes in one of these first two caps. I used a 3/8 inch round nose mill cutter and cut the flutes at 30 degree intervals. That resulted in 12 of them, but I think that is a bit too busy. I'm going to cut the next one at 40 degree intervals and see if I like that better. The only problem in that this acetal material cuts leaving plastic fuzz around all of the cuts that has to be trimmed away with a knife.

DKWalser

Jerry -- Re: the plastic fuzz, would it be possible to start the flute cuts from the top of the cal and then complete flute by cutting from the bottom of the cap? I don't know with your equipment if that would be quicker than trimming off the fuzz by hand, but it should get rid of the problem.