I used to work in the very factory that those indicators were produced. I did service and overhaul on indicators and all types of gyros including platform gyros from Lear Siegler.
I was gobsmacked at how petite the components are! Remember, this goes in a fighter jet. At the kind of forces involved, the componentry inside that unit has to take a lot before it gives out, yet... it's enough to have those little wires. Unreal how things can look when a proper designer is behind it. It makes some of the slip rings (within the same voltage works) look like brutish ogre tools - i am looking at one right now and there's just no comparison, mine's one used inside LiDAR units that are meant to be flown, so same/same kind of category :)). I almost want to commit the sacrilege and get one of these units just for those slip rings.
I've long been fascinated by these little engineering marvels, probably since seeing the FDAI in Apollo 13 as a kid! Thanks for the fantastic teardown and tour so far. Can't wait to see the rest of the story!
The Apollo FDAIs were quite a feat of engineering, not only the design of the unit but also providing meaningful input from the AGC. While we fly in three dimensions, we typically only receive two dimensions on the attitude indicator and the third (yaw) through the horizontal situation indicator. Even with today’s ‘glass’ screens, we do not have the third axis on attitude indicator. It goes to show the amazing feat of efficiency to display three dimensions of attitude, desired attitude (flight director) and rates on one instrument.
Sitting in a DC10-30 as a flight engineer and the 737-200 as a First Officer I always appreciated the art and engineering that went into the analog mechanical flight directors. Absolute genius. Thanks for the look into the guts! Geoff Quickfall ATPL, BSc, MSc, PhD candidate. 28,000 hours. B737, B757, B767, B777, B787, DC10, Floats C185, DHC2, B18.
FYI, these were essentially used directly as the Gemini FDAI. The knob as moved to the left and the markings were changed and they used updated components for vacuum operation but as far as I've been able to tell, they're otherwise pretty identical
I've always loved all things 'gyroscope'. In Navy I repaired mk19 gyrocompasses. I think I saw some resolvers with two-gear anti-backlash mechanism. Two gears on one shaft, one hard-fixed and the other friction-fixed. Second gear had different number of teeth so as the it was driven, the backlash was always taken up by the 'fit' of the second gear. Some marvels of mech. engineering and electronics in those things. The mk19 used two gyros and could thus provide direction, pitch, and roll (yes, two gyros but three axis orientation). I remember Buzz Aldrin quoted one time that he wished the LM had a 'third gimbal' to help avoid 'gimbal lock'.
I am also love all things Apollo❤😊. Since watching your channel, I’ve taken a real interest in aviation instruments, and I am putting together an entire aircraft panel project of vintage instruments.
The slip ring action is NUTS! And this has to be taken into consideration, in the context that it's a military plane that uses it, so that's also reliable as (for what it is). It looks fragile, but it's clearly not. 17:29 beauty!
Toujours aussi intéressant. Quelle ne fût pas ma surprise de voir Jean-Marc cette semaine dans un documentaire sur la chaine Arte !!!! Vous êtes partout 😂
En effet! Très bon reportage d’Arte (sauf le titre, dont une partie filmée chez moi): “Silicon f**g Valley”, ici: th-cam.com/video/g9ZKLeyHyZA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SXnkw4NiET4riC8z
-Careful! Don't over-discombobulate it! -What do you mean, over-discombobulate? A lovely indicator - kinda reminds me of the Soyuz INK navigational computer you took a deep dive into some time ago. Both are space tech, both have balls and precision mechanics.
I was comparing the two throughout the video. The Soyuz instrument simply showed progress on a predetermined course. It had a single fixed fast-forward feature which would project the landing area if the retrorockets were fired and all previous assumptions held. Really it was just spinning a globe on its axis. The orbital inclination was set when the covering was printed. The spin rate, equivalent to the altitude, could be adjusted over a limited range but not varied as would be needed for anything but a perfectly circular orbit. It wasn't so much a navigation instrument as a mission clock. If anything unexpected happened with the orbital inclination, circularity, or spacecraft mass it wouldn't have any navigational value. This, on the other hand, can display not only every point on the sphere, but do so in any orientation. It's only a display for the actual navigation system, and is for orientation rather than position, but it's so much more flexible for a mission that involves maneuvering rather than simply circling on a preplanned orbit.
A lot of engineering went into building the indicator, had to be the pinnacle of 400Hz AC servo design and I am sure it's a lost art today. You used to see a lot of those small servos in the surplus stores, not so much today.
Hah, I just noticed I have the same watch as Marc! Casio 5610 atomic sync, with black screen. I put JayandKay aluminum band adapters (to use normal 22mm watch bands), with a WatchSteward minimalist black elastic band, and black 'rollcage' to protect the screen. It's my daily wear and I love it. I didn't really like the stock band, I normally wear NATO style, but wanted to try something different, and I'm glad I did. The only downside is the aluminum band adapters is they add more distance between band mounts, so if you have small wrists, it might make your band be too large (making the band longer then normal), but the adapters also have a tiny bit of wiggle to them, and machined with an angle, so it wraps around your wrist quite nicely!
The amount and quality of engineering in this is incredible. It would still be a challenge to design it from scratch today, with all the advanced CAD softwares we have, despite those make engineering orders of magnitude easier. And this wonder was all done on paper with human brainpower. I can imagine they probably used mainframes for some of the calculations, but that in itself was a big task without the aid of a GUI. Like the inside of the ball with all those motors and gears must be quite well balanced in order to not cause an uneven load for the servos. So they had to engineer that complex mechanism with balance of mass in mind. I guess nowadays that is a task well aided with advanced CAD softwares, but I can't imagine how have they done it manually. Also I guess the spinning mass of the rotors in the motors that are mounted on a mechanism which is rotating around three axis simultaneously could easily cause unwanted gyroscopic effects, so they had to calculate the placement of the motors very carefully.
Reminds my of the motor of the SABA valve radios with the automatic tuning. Only that they had the (mains derived) excitation shifted 90° with a capacitor and made the (electronic) control either 0° or 180° depending on desired direction.
For some strange reason I have always wanted an attitude indicator. There is just something inside me that wants to obsess over the way something so complicated can work.
Luckily to get it going you don't really need slip rings if you are not going to tumble it continuously, you could use jump wires. 115VAC at 500hz means you usually do see where the fault. When I looked at that unit, if I was to try and work out how much it would cost to machine and make by hand, it would be incredibly expensive. It's everything that's fascinating about clock making, mechanics, physics and electronics in one fine work of art. They were very clever in the 50's and 60's, it was cutting edge.
You guys need to see if your can get sponsored by creality or one of the other handheld scanner companies because I think putting out 3d models of some of these finds would be amazing, if for nothing else than to act as starting points for recreations
I was having a hard time grasping how the slip ring worked. wouldn't the wires inside of the tube twist as it spun? I was planning on using this idea for possible future projects...
It has to be the same ring and wiper assembly inside the globe. The wires are embedded in some transparent epoxy material between the inner shaft and the contact rings.
I'm from Germany. Working in an aerospace company. I'm following teh channel for years. It's my favorite one. But at 20:00 I can see a bottle with crystal clear maple syrup in the background. Is that some special Apollo space maple syrup?
man I ever get a hold of a spacecraft navball like that I'm bolting it to my dashboard and making it work in my car just so I can enjoy it operating every single day.
You'd prolly have a better time 3D printing (you don't even need to own a printer these days - just have it ordered) and using modern resources to make one rather than trying to adapt the high voltage to work for you. If i were you, i'd get a hand of the two shells and the bezel and do everything else from scratch. Luckily, there's a market for spares and the prices are not out of pocket. With a bit of arduino (maybe a pi-computer) and some modern servos, you could have it work. Were it me, i'd make it so that when you turn the car, the ball turns to match it, stopping and accelerating would make it tilt etc. Good luck!
@@aserta 1, you've apparently never tried to carry 3d printed stuff in a car before. There isn't a filament I can run through my printer that won't deform from heat stresses in short order. 2, you're completely missing the entire point of the comment I made.
Who would have guessed that the size of the ball was based, not on what the pilot could conveniently read, but the smallest space that you could fit the necessary motors and resolvers?
You go from -90 degrees phase in the control winding to +90 degrees phase (-90 + 180). So your magnetic field rotates in the other direction, and the motor cage follows. In other words, magnetic magic.
@@CuriousMarc magic smoke, magic phase, lots of magic ! Thanks for your answer. Nice channel, btw. I wish I had 1/100th of your equipment. And knowledge...
Yes, we are sure. It's written right on the motor, and also in the MIL specs of the device. If you follow the video, you'll see we found the root cause was a short in the slip ring.
Every time I see Master Ken's reverse engineering I gasp... folks just don't realize what it takes to do that kind of work.
Yes but...Capacitor! Lol
@@NeilABliss He had to remind him twice! They make a great team.
understanding the thinking sand by just looking at it
a demigod.
Master Ken sees the matrix
Master Ken is really deserving of the title. That truly is a masterful level of skill.
What, by just connecting power to a motor?
@tyronenelson9124 no, his reverse engineering skills.
I used to work in the very factory that those indicators were produced. I did service and overhaul on indicators and all types of gyros including platform gyros from Lear Siegler.
That slip ring is a thing of beauty
truely!
I was gobsmacked at how petite the components are! Remember, this goes in a fighter jet. At the kind of forces involved, the componentry inside that unit has to take a lot before it gives out, yet... it's enough to have those little wires. Unreal how things can look when a proper designer is behind it. It makes some of the slip rings (within the same voltage works) look like brutish ogre tools - i am looking at one right now and there's just no comparison, mine's one used inside LiDAR units that are meant to be flown, so same/same kind of category :)). I almost want to commit the sacrilege and get one of these units just for those slip rings.
Good to see Eric’s magic finger at work again!
Oh man was hoping for this one; I have a few of these and the HSI; they are the most beautiful pieces of engineering I have ever seen
I've long been fascinated by these little engineering marvels, probably since seeing the FDAI in Apollo 13 as a kid! Thanks for the fantastic teardown and tour so far. Can't wait to see the rest of the story!
I smile every time is see another CuriousMarc video posted. Thanks for making these!
Ken & Marc are actually the funniest people on this channel
Nah, Eric's jokes are way worse than any of ours.
I work at an instrument mro that works on legacy helicopter instruments. Lear Seigler stuff is beyond cursed
>cursed
That's something you want to hear about aeronautics equipment.
Fantasticly satisfying to see these magicians at work. Thanks guys!
The Apollo FDAIs were quite a feat of engineering, not only the design of the unit but also providing meaningful input from the AGC. While we fly in three dimensions, we typically only receive two dimensions on the attitude indicator and the third (yaw) through the horizontal situation indicator. Even with today’s ‘glass’ screens, we do not have the third axis on attitude indicator. It goes to show the amazing feat of efficiency to display three dimensions of attitude, desired attitude (flight director) and rates on one instrument.
Too bad it smoked, but everyone made an excellent recovery, and repair! Amazing troubleshooting as always team!
Sometimes the magic smoke is required to repair things. It's like an offering to the tech gods.
In fact, it more or less fixed itself.
Obviously they could fix the short in the slip ring, but they don't tell us how they did it
Another awesome episode. Thanks Team!
Ken & Marc with another gold mine! Great work gents.
Sitting in a DC10-30 as a flight engineer and the 737-200 as a First Officer I always appreciated the art and engineering that went into the analog mechanical flight directors. Absolute genius. Thanks for the look into the guts!
Geoff Quickfall ATPL, BSc, MSc, PhD candidate. 28,000 hours. B737, B757, B767, B777, B787, DC10, Floats C185, DHC2, B18.
FYI, these were essentially used directly as the Gemini FDAI. The knob as moved to the left and the markings were changed and they used updated components for vacuum operation but as far as I've been able to tell, they're otherwise pretty identical
Excellent as always sir. You guys have all the fun.
Oh no, the rings are speaking to each other and we nearly had a fiery eye of Sauron!
I've always loved all things 'gyroscope'. In Navy I repaired mk19 gyrocompasses. I think I saw some resolvers with two-gear anti-backlash mechanism. Two gears on one shaft, one hard-fixed and the other friction-fixed. Second gear had different number of teeth so as the it was driven, the backlash was always taken up by the 'fit' of the second gear.
Some marvels of mech. engineering and electronics in those things. The mk19 used two gyros and could thus provide direction, pitch, and roll (yes, two gyros but three axis orientation). I remember Buzz Aldrin quoted one time that he wished the LM had a 'third gimbal' to help avoid 'gimbal lock'.
Great teamwork - as always. Thanks for showing !
It is always interesting to see what is on the inside of these instruments.
There's always more than you think there is...very beautiful engineering and packaging.
This is what I need. Thanks Marc!
This channel is such a gem. These guys are true wizards.
as usual great repair and analysis -- always wait for the next episode.
I am also love all things Apollo❤😊. Since watching your channel, I’ve taken a real interest in aviation instruments, and I am putting together an entire aircraft panel project of vintage instruments.
I love this channel!
Automagically .. I just love these Bon Mots.. Nice video again!
loved to see the little (and relatively simple) Marshall amp in the background!
What a great set of friends you have.
The slip ring action is NUTS! And this has to be taken into consideration, in the context that it's a military plane that uses it, so that's also reliable as (for what it is). It looks fragile, but it's clearly not.
17:29 beauty!
Toujours aussi intéressant. Quelle ne fût pas ma surprise de voir Jean-Marc cette semaine dans un documentaire sur la chaine Arte !!!! Vous êtes partout 😂
En effet! Très bon reportage d’Arte (sauf le titre, dont une partie filmée chez moi): “Silicon f**g Valley”, ici: th-cam.com/video/g9ZKLeyHyZA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SXnkw4NiET4riC8z
You people are amazing!
Love it! 👍
I've long wondered how these work. Fascinating mechanism that apparently does the impossible!
The small hours meter is very cute.
I was amazed when I saw it
Eric's "I'm disappointed in you" face :D But hey, just shows how robust these things were, it worked like nothing happened after.
Great video !
agh, not the smoke... you'll have to buy a refill kit for it. i've heard they're costly...
especially since you'd need smoke of the right vintage
Aerospace grade smoke is like 10x the price of the regular one, but fits avionics of any vintage
Getting the smoke is pretty easy. But the hard part is getting it back into the casing...
-Careful! Don't over-discombobulate it!
-What do you mean, over-discombobulate?
A lovely indicator - kinda reminds me of the Soyuz INK navigational computer you took a deep dive into some time ago. Both are space tech, both have balls and precision mechanics.
I was comparing the two throughout the video.
The Soyuz instrument simply showed progress on a predetermined course. It had a single fixed fast-forward feature which would project the landing area if the retrorockets were fired and all previous assumptions held. Really it was just spinning a globe on its axis. The orbital inclination was set when the covering was printed. The spin rate, equivalent to the altitude, could be adjusted over a limited range but not varied as would be needed for anything but a perfectly circular orbit. It wasn't so much a navigation instrument as a mission clock. If anything unexpected happened with the orbital inclination, circularity, or spacecraft mass it wouldn't have any navigational value.
This, on the other hand, can display not only every point on the sphere, but do so in any orientation. It's only a display for the actual navigation system, and is for orientation rather than position, but it's so much more flexible for a mission that involves maneuvering rather than simply circling on a preplanned orbit.
A lot of engineering went into building the indicator, had to be the pinnacle of 400Hz AC servo design and I am sure it's a lost art today. You used to see a lot of those small servos in the surplus stores, not so much today.
The ring in the middle of the ball is genius. I wondered how they managed to rotate that axis without being a free-floating ball.
loving the mad scientist attire!
Marc and Mr. Carlson ❤ - in the frame • nice 🎉❤
Mr. Carlson is Mr Pumpkin Head?
Hah, I just noticed I have the same watch as Marc! Casio 5610 atomic sync, with black screen. I put JayandKay aluminum band adapters (to use normal 22mm watch bands), with a WatchSteward minimalist black elastic band, and black 'rollcage' to protect the screen. It's my daily wear and I love it. I didn't really like the stock band, I normally wear NATO style, but wanted to try something different, and I'm glad I did. The only downside is the aluminum band adapters is they add more distance between band mounts, so if you have small wrists, it might make your band be too large (making the band longer then normal), but the adapters also have a tiny bit of wiggle to them, and machined with an angle, so it wraps around your wrist quite nicely!
Master Ken. Is truly wizard.
Very cool
The amount and quality of engineering in this is incredible. It would still be a challenge to design it from scratch today, with all the advanced CAD softwares we have, despite those make engineering orders of magnitude easier. And this wonder was all done on paper with human brainpower. I can imagine they probably used mainframes for some of the calculations, but that in itself was a big task without the aid of a GUI.
Like the inside of the ball with all those motors and gears must be quite well balanced in order to not cause an uneven load for the servos. So they had to engineer that complex mechanism with balance of mass in mind. I guess nowadays that is a task well aided with advanced CAD softwares, but I can't imagine how have they done it manually.
Also I guess the spinning mass of the rotors in the motors that are mounted on a mechanism which is rotating around three axis simultaneously could easily cause unwanted gyroscopic effects, so they had to calculate the placement of the motors very carefully.
If there was just a way to gain Master Ken's knowledge remotely... Wow!
"I wasn't expecting a cube!" 😅
If I follow the channel? Of course I follow the channel!
If Marc says "that's hard to repair", things tend to get very interesting
Reminds my of the motor of the SABA valve radios with the automatic tuning. Only that they had the (mains derived) excitation shifted 90° with a capacitor and made the (electronic) control either 0° or 180° depending on desired direction.
For some strange reason I have always wanted an attitude indicator. There is just something inside me that wants to obsess over the way something so complicated can work.
Wasn't Lear Siegler also the producer of the venerable ADM-3A serial terminal?
Yes.
Yup. And lots of seats in Ford cars, and the battery charger in the Chevy Volt.
Lear (the man) did a LOT of things. Guy just went around populating the world with his ideas. :))
@@aserta The LearJet 8 track stereo cartridge, for example.
Nice.
This is why, you should have an IBM magic smoke refill can on hand!!!
Let’s go ! 😊
Luckily to get it going you don't really need slip rings if you are not going to tumble it continuously, you could use jump wires. 115VAC at 500hz means you usually do see where the fault.
When I looked at that unit, if I was to try and work out how much it would cost to machine and make by hand, it would be incredibly expensive. It's everything that's fascinating about clock making, mechanics, physics and electronics in one fine work of art. They were very clever in the 50's and 60's, it was cutting edge.
I have a pair of these! I'm trying to bring them to life for a Kerbal Space Program instrument panel.
You guys need to see if your can get sponsored by creality or one of the other handheld scanner companies because I think putting out 3d models of some of these finds would be amazing, if for nothing else than to act as starting points for recreations
lol? first thing that pops up in the chat replay is "Saarland" ?! That ist freaky :) I also live there
I repair the Bell helicopter version of these ADIs - cool to see on YT
I was having a hard time grasping how the slip ring worked.
wouldn't the wires inside of the tube twist as it spun?
I was planning on using this idea for possible future projects...
It has to be the same ring and wiper assembly inside the globe. The wires are embedded in some transparent epoxy material between the inner shaft and the contact rings.
One slip ring on the pitch axis, another on roll, and yaw doesn't need one because it rides on the equator driving the hemisphere shells.
I'm from Germany. Working in an aerospace company. I'm following teh channel for years. It's my favorite one. But at 20:00 I can see a bottle with crystal clear maple syrup in the background. Is that some special Apollo space maple syrup?
I am betting it relates to a recent AvE video! 😅
Vermont maple syrup. It's better than the Quebec variety. Cheaper by 25% now, too.
It’s the water bottle for the soldering iron sponge…
Who else wants to see a Kerbal session with this indicator hooked up additionally? That would be a blast...
man I ever get a hold of a spacecraft navball like that I'm bolting it to my dashboard and making it work in my car just so I can enjoy it operating every single day.
You'd prolly have a better time 3D printing (you don't even need to own a printer these days - just have it ordered) and using modern resources to make one rather than trying to adapt the high voltage to work for you. If i were you, i'd get a hand of the two shells and the bezel and do everything else from scratch. Luckily, there's a market for spares and the prices are not out of pocket. With a bit of arduino (maybe a pi-computer) and some modern servos, you could have it work. Were it me, i'd make it so that when you turn the car, the ball turns to match it, stopping and accelerating would make it tilt etc. Good luck!
@@aserta 1, you've apparently never tried to carry 3d printed stuff in a car before. There isn't a filament I can run through my printer that won't deform from heat stresses in short order.
2, you're completely missing the entire point of the comment I made.
Is there a removable plastic front on the DMM916 ? If you remove it we can se better in camera ;) Love ❤ your channel
What about the missing needle indicators, what stuff r they? Does it work w/o them?
at 19:30 the dmm916 display is partially shrouded - do you still have the plastic film attached ?
Lear Siegler, I assume it to bee the maker of the famous ADM-3A CRT terminals from the old days.
Look nobody loves a smart ass apart from you lot as you share your knowledge and the fun in such a nice way! Thanks for the videos
Having as much as possible inside the ball reduces the imbalance and stress possibilities during high G load operations.
16:39 I thought the video got stuck when everything went still for a moment lol xD
What is the name of the intro outro music ??
Where do you buy new stock of magic smoke ?
IBM magic smoke!
You need a comparable donor component that you can then attempt a smoke transfusion to replace the lost smoke😂
So why did the F4 Phantom have an 8 ball?
Who would have guessed that the size of the ball was based, not on what the pilot could conveniently read, but the smallest space that you could fit the necessary motors and resolvers?
❤❤❤❤❤❤
So I've seen two videos of Teletype owners who have released the Magic Smoke today..
Marc, you didnt screwed uo, you unscrewed up! Hahah :)
NO!!! Now the prices of these are gonna blow up 😂. Should have bought one
❤️🔥
It looks like it's basically three synchro resolvers?
✌️
I don't get how you reverse the rotation by reversing the AC voltage... (at 12'25")
You go from -90 degrees phase in the control winding to +90 degrees phase (-90 + 180). So your magnetic field rotates in the other direction, and the motor cage follows. In other words, magnetic magic.
@@CuriousMarc magic smoke, magic phase, lots of magic ! Thanks for your answer. Nice channel, btw. I wish I had 1/100th of your equipment. And knowledge...
I have an attitude indicator. It's a wallet that says bad mofo on it.
I’m waiting for these guys to buy an old fighter jet and get that running.
kool :)
Slip rings require conductive grease, or they will wear out very quickly.
Are you sure this is 115VAC and not 28VAC?
Yes, we are sure. It's written right on the motor, and also in the MIL specs of the device. If you follow the video, you'll see we found the root cause was a short in the slip ring.
woo
isn't it 'atitude' (one T) ?
Guys! Guys! Please, for the love of the electron! Peel off the protective film off the multimeter's display! I can't see a damn thing on it! 😅
Its a bad day when you burn a hole in your ring.
Omg Kerbal space program 😲
Rip Ring....
John Pumpkinhead.... Decino??
Master Ken calling something "complex" is really scary... 😂😂😂
Yummy. Maple Syrup and Italian Mineral water.