Mistake in plans regarding cyclotron lights?

Equipment Proton Packs
1

I’ve been using Stefan’s plans and have looked absolutely everywhere for something I can use for the washers that surround the cyclotron lights, with no luck. At least, using his dimensions. Metal washers, nylon washers, sink drains, you name it, I’ve measured it.

Stefan’s plans indicate these washers have a 2 3/8" OD and a 1 3/16" ID. Yet no washer seems to exist with those dimensions. Hell, Home Depot and Lowes don’t even sell washers that are anywhere close to that large. I had to go to little hardware stores like TrueValue and Ace to find washers that big.

And there, the closest thing they have are washers that are close are 2 1/2" OD and 1 1/16" ID.

At the craft store I did find some wood circles that have the correct outer diameter, but they were 1/4" thick, and I didn’t want to have to drill them, sand them down to half their thickness, and round off the edges.

So, in my frustration, I decided to double check Stefan’s plans.

First I compared them to Sean’s plans, and lo and behold, Sean’s measurement for the washers was quite different from Stefan’s. He says the washers are 2 7/16" OD and 1 1/4" ID, which is 1/16" more in both cases than Stefan’s measurements, and very close to the 2 1/2" OD of the washers I found.

The next thing I did was reference Ray’s pack. And when I compared the look of the washers to Stefan’s plans, it seems clear that either the measurements in Stefan’s plans are off, or the drawing is off, because the washers on Ray’s pack are almost certainly larger and approach the edge of the cyclotron more closely than is depicted in Stefan’s plans.

But are the outer diameter measurements in Sean’s plans also too small? It’s possible. The washers I found are yet 1/16" wider than Sean’s plans show. Yet when I put them on my 9" cake pan, they compare favorably to Ray’s pack. AND, even though the inner diameter is a whole 1/8" smaller than even Stefan’s plans, when I compare the width of the washer’s ring to that of the ones on Ray’s pack, it’s clear they’re really close.

But eyeballing it wasn’t good enough for me, so I took one of the straight-on views of Ray’s cyclotron, and I blew the image up on my monitor so the outer diameter of the washer matched the washer I held in my hand, and I placed my washer over the one on the screen. And lo and behold, they are a perfect match, which proves conclusively that both Stefan’s and Sean’s plans must be off, because they list the difference between the washer’s inner and outer radius as 19/32", when it’s clearly at least 11/16" or 22/32".

Btw, here are the pertinent sections of the plans in question if you’d like to look at them:

http://www.gbfans.com/images/equipment/plans/sean-pack-plan_22.jpg

http://www.gbfans.com/images/equipment/plans/stefan_3.jpg

2

Yes, the washer’s are wrong in most plans,as are the locations… This is the reason in many builds you will see the n-filter not fitting right and or hanging over the edge…

Also note the top washers are a different size then the bottom ones…

3

They are? Damn. I thought they looked different, but I figured the pack might be tilting away from the camera slightly. Guess it’s back to the hardware store today to get that slightly smaller set of washers they had.

4

You can’t go by found washer sizes because there’s no evidence to show that they used washers, they could have been custom cut.

At any rate. I have done my own research and scaling and I found that Stefan’s ID and OD for the top discs are accurate. The ID for the bottom one is the same but the OD is smaller as Flynn mentioned.

5

Yeah, if you change the lower one’s OD to be smaller the N-Filter fits perfectly on the pack. At least it did on mine. I can’t remember the exact OD length at the moment though.

6

That doesn’t make sense. Why would a prop designer have such a trivial part custom machined when they could just grab a washer or a drain cover or some other random piece which was readily available that would look just as good?

That said, I’ve compared my washer to a better reference pic I found, and the center hole on the pack is in fact larger, relative to the outer diameter, than the hole in my washer. So it turns out my washer is not as perfect a fit as I had hoped.

http://www.gbfans.com/images/equipment/reference/1/7.jpg

Also, you can clearly see in that pic that the bottom washers do have a smaller outer diameter than the top washers. The border is clearly thinner. The center hole however is identical in size.

SO… I think if I take my 2 1/2" washer, and my 2 1/4" washer, and drill the center out with my 1 1/4" hole saw, I’ll get two pieces which have the right thickness borders and hopefully the right outer diameter.

Not looking forward to trying to drill through 1/4" steel though. Maybe I should go back to the wood circles…

7

That’s like asking why the prop department would make any custom item for a prop when they could easily just use found items. They do it for whatever their reasons are. They custom made the bumper instead of using some handle or something, they custom made the cyclotron instead of using a cake pan…they just do.

The research, scaling and photo comparisons I did were based off other item dimensions. It’s good that you are checking things out yourself, but so far your methods are flawed sounding. Zooming in on a photo until it matches something you are holding to the screen completely ignores the scale of everything else on the pack. One could hold up a CD to the screen and zoom it till it was the size of the cyclotron and then argue that the CD was the perfect size for it. A silly example yes but I imagine you get my point. Anyway, like I said, I think it’s great you want to make sure the details are correct. Stefan’s plans are more or less dead on, and some dimensions or details are off here and there. In this case, based on my research, his ID and OD on the upper are bang on. The lower OD is off.

8

I’m not an idiot. :slight_smile:

I didn’t hold the washer to the screen to check to see if the outer diameter was the same after scaling it to some arbitrary size. I did it to check to see if the size of the hole in the middle, relative to the outside diameter, was the same. Unfortunately, the first pic I used was a shot of the whole pack, so the lights were relatively small and as a result comparison was difficult.

9

Right, I didn’t mean to make you sound like an idiot, I just meant that scaling using that method, even if the ID and OD synced up, doesn’t mean you’ve reached the right scale. A 1" OD washer could have the same relative dimensions and it’d be way off.

Again though, I think it’s great that you want to double check things and such.

10

IMO the chance of them being over the counter washers is slim, because they are two different sizes that to me indicates something more unique…

If they were not custom made they were probably some part of a machine, a custom machined spacer or something…

My solution, make them, these arrived today laser cut goodness as coincidently this is actually something I have been working on lately…

image

11

Beautiful.

How much? :slight_smile:

12

At this time they are not for sale, these were made for a personal project… I really don’t see much market in these unless I’m wrong, but getting them lasercut pushes the price pretty high for a “washer” I doubt many will pay the price…

I had three sizes cut so as there isn’t really a general consensus on the lower washers size so I will experiment…