The Following Upgrades and accessories are available, to XS3 owners:
They are made of metal, as experience has shown the BW Meter is superfluous in a .01° machine.
These do fit the current Graves 5XL. Made of metal, they have less elasticity than the insulator-type OEM that allowed the use of a BW meter.
2: Jitter-free rock solid display upgrade. This solves the AC Line transient issues for some users in remote locations at the end of long transmission lines. (Or a neighbor who has a BIG Welder.)
Disassembly and reassembly and recalibration required. About one week turnaround.
If one screw is tightened more than the other, the bearing can be forced into a shallow cone, and the assembly will rock. Then, the bearing can appear loose in its bore, but the sliding on the shaft will seem tight enough. You should rarely, if ever, have to touch these adjustments!
For those who choose the 1" diameter upgrade kit, changing the bearing is very easy. Simply back out the two setscrews, slide out the bearing, push in the replacement, and engage the setscrews and adjust as usual.
The adjustable bearing was chosen for units after #14 because the ball bearings previously used required close tolerances on the purchased ground and polished rod- Many units had to be purchased and hand-selected for fit. Having worked on many English cars who required "Selective assembly for a double-thumb press fit on the gudgeon pin" I came to the conclusion that this is no damned way to build something!!! :-)
HOWEVER: If someone ever decides they do not like to play with adjustments, or have difficulty doing so, write me and I will swap out the bearing with the non-adjustable type! They can be changed in a minute with an Allen wrench.
1: Alan wrench socket.
2: 7/16 Hex Nut
3: Thread Friction Preload
There must be slight friction on the cheater shaft thread, because the shaft moves with the motion of the index latch. The cheater knob should be slightly difficult to turn. If it drifts in use, indexing will be unreliable. (3) is a nylon-tipped setscrew that acts as a brake on the threads and may be adjusted if needed.
Cross shaft preload adjustment will probably never need to be done, as the preload is on ball bearings. It is easily accomplished with an allen wrench inserted into the socket (1) to immobilize the shaft, while the adjustment is made by turning the 7/16 Nylock nut (2).
The critical test is, with the latch fully engaged in an index gear tooth, when applying back-and-forth torque to the index gear, there should be NO detectable play or slop. Beware: People have mentioned that once in a while, the freewheeling latch can wiggle or move and prevent full engagment of the index latch, resulting in sloppy indexing! Be sure that for most faceting it is fully retracted.
The units are shipped in calibration, and tested at 0,30°,45°,60°, and 90°.
(Due to construction internal details of the sensor, at true 0°, the meter should read "00.04" to "00.07"
. Later units are now locked permanently with a drilled in place dowel pin.Unless the unit was subjected to severe shock and vibration in transit, there should never be any need to touch this adjustment
This is a sensitive adjustment.
Unscrew the micrometer spindle to expose the adjusting nut. Depending on the micrometer, the adjustment nut may have notches or holes to engage the spanner wrench (Supplied with the machine).
Tighten the nut a small amount, perhaps 1/8 turn and screww in the micrometer head and see how you like the stiffness. Repeat as needed until the micrometer head requires a slight effort to rotate it.
Here is how it really works: Every time UPS, Fedex, or the PO raises its rates, the service gets worse. Count on it.
