I was away on business at the back end of July/early August - maybe more on that another day.
In the meantime, Mrs B bid for a sewing machine on ebay.
She lost the bid but the winner pulled out so she had a second chance and decided to get it.
A 1953 Singer in a beautiful wooden cabinet. That alone was worth the ?29 (about $48) she paid for it.
We went to collect it, struggled to get it the car but just did.
The cabinet was in nice condition.
The wiring - not so much. It was in a parlous state. Shame but I didn't take pictures of that.
As we were leaving, the guy selling it advised us not to power it up without finding an electrical engineer to check it out.
"Oh!" I said to Mrs B.
"Wonder where we can find one of those?"
"I might know one," she replied looking me in the eye with not a flicker of a smile.
Wasted on the seller.
Anyway, the original wiring was rubber insulated (TRS here) and much of that was perished. Given the age, the original plug would have been round pin and not fitted the square pin now used. At some point that had been removed as in the cable cut and a new bit of cable just twisted to the old and a minimal bit of insulating tape used. Some other bits were reconnected in a similar Heath-Robinson fashion.
To start with, I thought the machine, as connected might have been operational so my plan was just replace the wiring, make good connections and job done. But a few of the terminations had fallen apart and, from the best I could make of them, they didn't look as if they could have been right. And no connection diagram. And no earth (ground) wire.
So, back to basics. A light, a motor and a controller. Not too complicated so I did a temporary job wiring it as I thought it ought to be wired, the objective being to ensure it worked. And it did. Beautifully smooth and quiet. It's been a nice little project but work and pleasant family commitments have delayed completion. Now that I know it works, I'll tidy it up this weekend.
In the meantime, Mrs B bid for a sewing machine on ebay.
She lost the bid but the winner pulled out so she had a second chance and decided to get it.
A 1953 Singer in a beautiful wooden cabinet. That alone was worth the ?29 (about $48) she paid for it.
We went to collect it, struggled to get it the car but just did.
The cabinet was in nice condition.
The wiring - not so much. It was in a parlous state. Shame but I didn't take pictures of that.
As we were leaving, the guy selling it advised us not to power it up without finding an electrical engineer to check it out.
"Oh!" I said to Mrs B.
"Wonder where we can find one of those?"
"I might know one," she replied looking me in the eye with not a flicker of a smile.
Wasted on the seller.
Anyway, the original wiring was rubber insulated (TRS here) and much of that was perished. Given the age, the original plug would have been round pin and not fitted the square pin now used. At some point that had been removed as in the cable cut and a new bit of cable just twisted to the old and a minimal bit of insulating tape used. Some other bits were reconnected in a similar Heath-Robinson fashion.
To start with, I thought the machine, as connected might have been operational so my plan was just replace the wiring, make good connections and job done. But a few of the terminations had fallen apart and, from the best I could make of them, they didn't look as if they could have been right. And no connection diagram. And no earth (ground) wire.
So, back to basics. A light, a motor and a controller. Not too complicated so I did a temporary job wiring it as I thought it ought to be wired, the objective being to ensure it worked. And it did. Beautifully smooth and quiet. It's been a nice little project but work and pleasant family commitments have delayed completion. Now that I know it works, I'll tidy it up this weekend.
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