-
-
-
May 2020:
I liked a few of the crystals, but they seemed a bit small, especially compared to the quartz I had. I wanted something a little bigger. The size of the crystal I chose was limited by the ability for a 5 mm LED to illuminate the whole thing. Turns out jadeite is rather opaque. As I toyed with the pieces I had, I came up with a way to fit an LED shining into both ends of the crystal:
---->
Same elements as before, but now I've included the copper pieces for the crystal chamber. Inspired by Slothfurnace's radiator fins, I designed these semi-circles to be decorative elements for the chamber and to create a wire channel. I used Adobe Illustrator to design these elements, as well as the brass plate elements mentioned earlier, which TCSS then machined for me; thanks Tim!
I used brass nuts as spacers between the copper pieces for a few reasons. Mainly, they are consistent in height and small. I don't currently have a way to take the 3/16" brass tube stock, cut it to 1/8" length pieces, and square the ends. I could have commissioned these from TCSS, but I didn't actually know the precise dimensions my crystal chamber was going to take when I originally had pieces commissioned. So, I worked with what I had. Let me tell you, screwing on each nut over and over got old.
Last edited by Kreyhn; 04-18-2022 at 09:48 AM.
-
From here, I put together a rig to test the larger pieces of jadeite, and I found the right one:
-
-
August 2020
Next step came the fine details. I found that the nuts didn't quite space things out perfectly for the jade chamber. Again focusing on uniform height of spacers, I have some K&S brass plate left over from the LED holding elements which TCSS machined. That brass plate had chassis disc sized holes, so I cut some pieces out, stacked them on some 4-40 rod, clamped them together with nuts, and spun them on a dremel. And that's how I ruined my flex shaft. The 4-40 rod wasn't enough to hold up to the side pressure and bent in the flex shaft chuck, ruining the alignment. Glad it wasn't the main body! Altogether when it was done, the spacers looked good:
I did have to countersink the central hole in the crystal holders in order to get things to sit just perfectly; that's how I dealt with that little bit of space left.
Last edited by Kreyhn; 04-22-2022 at 07:30 PM.
-
-
August 2020
It's all coming together now...
-
-
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules
Bookmarks