Stewart Dickson 110 N Whipple St Fort Bragg, CA 95437 (707)813-0385 <MathArtSPD@GMail.com>
The 3-D Zoetrope is shipped in two wooden boxes weighing a total of 320 pounds.
One box contains the base for the piece and the other box contains the 'cabinet', or the Zoetrope itself.
The Zoetrope is shipped with the animated pieces removed from the wheel.
The animated pieces are mounted on the wheel by first removing the clear plexiglass windows through which the animation is normally viewed. The mounting holes for the 6-32 X 1/2" screws in the plexiglass windows are not interchangeable. The orientation of the two windows should be noted for replacing them.
The cabinet top is removed from the piece by removing the second row of 10-24 x 1/2" screws, four inches or so from the bottom of the cabinet. The cabinet top should not be removed while the animated pieces are mounted on the wheel.
The stroboscopic lighting is mounted to the viewing windows in the cabinet. The wiring in the cabinet top is connected to the driving electronics in the cabinet base by a nylon connector. The strobe lighting wire is long enough to allow lifting the top completely off the cabinet with the connector together.
However, replacing the cabinet top requires that the strobe lighting wire be guided away from the wheel, through the hole in the bottom of the cabinet. Two people are required to lift and replace the cabinet top.
The cabinet top and the cabinet bottom contain matching wooden triangles (raised arrows) on the inside which should be pointing at each other when the cabinet top is placed over the base.
The trueness of the wheel should be checked and corrected if necessary after shipping. If this cannot be done with the wheel mounted on the base, then the position of the wheel in the fork should be marked before the wheel is removed. The position of the wheel in the fork is fairly critical to maintaining the animated pieces in the proper position in the windows.
The motor drives the wheel with a capstan roller held in contact with the rim of the wheel by a spring on the rotational motor mount. If the wheel has too much wobble, the capstan roller may fail to engage the wheel and the motor will be unable to start the wheel rotating.
With the cabinet top installed on the cabinet, the animated pieces are mounted on the wheel with two 4-40 x 1-1/4" machine screws and nuts per piece. Care should be taken to avoid dropping screws, nuts or tools inside the cabinet. Use removable Loctite on the nuts to prevent them from loosening after weeks of turning on the wheel.
The pieces are marked on the base with numerals to identify the phase of animation of each piece. The animation sequence is 0, 1, 2, 3, ... 28, 29, 30, 29, 28, ... 3, 2, 1, 0. The numerals on the bases should all be facing the same direction around the wheel as they pass the window.
The plexiglass viewing windows are reinstalled with 6-32 x 1/2" screws, making note of their orientation with respect to their mounting screw holes. Take care not to use 6-32 screws that are long enough to extend into the cabinet and strike the animating sculptures as they turn past the windows.
The driving electronics in the Zoetrope cabinet receive 5 volts DC power from a power supply in the Zoetrope base. There is a nylon connector which connects the driving electronics 5V power in the cabinet to the power supply in the base.
The Zoetrope cabinet mounts to the Zoetrope base with 10-24 x 1/2" screws through the bottom row of screw holes on the cabinet.
There is no switch in the power supply. The Zoetrope starts running when the power supply is plugged in.
The synchronization of the stroboscopic lighting with the wheel is optical with the pieces on the wheel itself. The synchronization should never drift.
The driving motor is operating at a fraction of its rated capacity. The power supply is operating at a fraction of its rated capacity. There should be no danger of overheating. The Zoetrope has operated continuously, for weeks trouble-free.
If the motor is running and the wheel is not spinning, (there is a mechanical problem between the motor and the wheel), you should be able to hear the motor running inside the cabinet. There is a capstan roller on the motor shaft (with a set-screw) which could conceivably come loose, such that the motor could spin and still not turn the wheel.
The whole cabinet (motor and lighting electronics) is run from the same 5 volt DC power supply. The power supply is actually located in the base, separate from the upper cabinet. You can take the cabinet off the base (without opening the sensitive part of the cabinet) to get to the power supply.
There is a 3-Amp fuse on the power supply chassis -- right near where the AC power cord attaches to the power supply. If there is no voltage on the 5-Volt output, then it could be a blown fuse.