Today I picked up the finished hardware, and it looks really good. Other than the cable carrier and the limit switches, everything is assembled and ready to go.
Bill cut off the end of the bearing shaft for me. It turns out it isn’t a rubber saw at all, although it does kind of look like it. It is a composite blade (hardware stores call them abrasive blades) that wears away as you cut. Apparently they work really well for cutting hard metals like the shaft.
Dana mounted the bearing shaft on the shelf for me. He ended up using a solid block underneath the brackets and just removed the right amount of material to get them to the thickness needed. Dana also drilled a hole in the pendulum and added a set screw at the end so the pendulum is easy to mount on the encoder. Bill cut off the end of the pendulum so it is about 30 inches long. That is about as long as I could make it without hitting the floor when it is sitting on a standard table.
Many thanks again to the guys at Shaltz Automation for helping me build this contraption. I couldn’t have done it without their help.
I wired up the motor to the 9505 module for preliminary testing. At this point, the programming begins, so I am going to start a new category called “software” where I will discuss writing and testing software. I will probably add a few more items in the hardware category when I add cable carrier and limit switches.