Picking up from where I left off the other day. Time to reassemble the shoulder joint and actually test how well it works.

I added some simple cardboard spaces in between the bottom plate and the plastic arm, this is to make sure there is no undue pressure on the ends of the heads, or the wiring. The modified shoulder worked pretty well, its slightly stiffer than the unmodified shoulder joint, but that is to be expected.

Unfortunately there was no electrical connection being made between the two plates. When fully assembled, the pressure between the two plates was sufficient to push the pins far enough back into the stops, so they no longer make a connection. So I decided to test things with just plain wire sticking out of the stops. This worked, for a handful of rotations, then the forces involved finally sheared off the wire where it emerged from the stops.

Now I was stumped. What could I use to make the connection between the plates. I spent quite a while thinking and searching through much junk piles. Eventually I decided to use the pins from an RCA audio cable. While not ideal, they work fairly well, though the modified shoulder is now rather stiff. For the moment I am just going to leave it at the one modified shoulder, hopefully I will be able to come up with something better for the other shoulder.

Stay tuned, up next we have finally have the software for the clock up and running (I promise).