Coloured Shims

[ak2m4]

I was thinking the other day what an arse it is for shims sizing identification.  Toying with the idea of getting some samples made up for testing as I'm not sure how the aluminium / anodized material would hold up to the grinding of gears.  Nothing complicated 0.1mm, 0.2mm, 0.3mm and 0.5mm all different colours.

 

Think it's worth a punt?  Would you be excited to use colour-coded shims?  Few other solutions like laser etching but so hard to see for those of us who need old man glasses 🙂 not to mention more expensive.

[Rogerborg]

Hmm. It is a sod, I keep my shims on coloured paperclips, but I'm still forever mixing them up and having to re-measure them.  Whether I'd pay for coloured shims is a different question though.  This might be of more interest to pro techs, but (for example) Luke has mentioned a few times that he tends to just uses fat stack of 0.1mm shims.

 

tl;dr - dunno.

[concretesnail]

I'm sure I've got some coloured and shaped shims. It was a three size pack with one size silver and one bronze and the third size was octagonal shape. It was really useful being able to tell the apart, so I'd be up for more sizes which can be differentiated.

[Colin Allen]

I find the etched shims that you sell perfectly adequate.  Having the size on each shim is very helpful. Given that I am very old and wear glasses that would not look out of place on a Japanese sniper, you young chaps should not be struggling to read the etching.

9 minutes ago, concretesnail said:

I'm sure I've got some coloured and shaped shims. It was a three size pack with one size silver and one bronze and the third size was octagonal shape. It was really useful being able to tell the apart, so I'd be up for more sizes which can be differentiated.

SHS shims; they are good.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Colin Allen

[ak2m4]

1 minute ago, concretesnail said:

I'm sure I've got some coloured and shaped shims. It was a three size pack with one size silver and one bronze and the third size was octagonal shape. It was really useful being able to tell the apart, so I'd be up for more sizes which can be differentiated.

 

that's the SHS pack, material is stainless steel of the silver but the bronze is copper I believe.   I'm curious to see how well aluminium holds up.

[Adolf Hamster]

I did try the etched shims and even with maximum ocd engaged it was a bugger to keep track of them.

 

So i opted for just stacks of 0.1 shims, dont gotta keep track of sizes if you only got one size

[Lozart]

I just buy a whole load of 0.1mm shims and then I know exactly what size they all are!

 

Colour coded springs on the other hand...

[Sewdhull]

Shims need to be hard, aluminium and copper are too soft for our purposes. Stainless or some other steel will work.

Shims need only flat and hard, i put the various sizes on a bolt. 

[Colin Allen]

42 minutes ago, Lozart said:

I just buy a whole load of 0.1mm shims and then I know exactly what size they all are!

 

Colour coded springs on the other hand...

ASG and Prometheus do them.

46 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

I did try the etched shims and even with maximum ocd engaged it was a bugger to keep track of them.

 

So i opted for just stacks of 0.1 shims, dont gotta keep track of sizes if you only got one size

I find it very easy to keep track of them; it just takes a bit of organisation.

 

I would rather use a single 0.3mm than three 0.1mm; it makes it easier to try to work out where that odd one you always find after opening a gearbox came from.

[Lozart]

24 minutes ago, Colin Allen said:

ASG and Prometheus do them.

 

 

Yeah...but @ak2m4 doesn't.

 

 

 

Yet.

[Colin Allen]

2 hours ago, Lozart said:

 

Yeah...but @ak2m4 doesn't.

 

 

 

Yet.

True; if he did, I would buy them.

Ideally, they would need to be entirely coloured, like the Prometheus ones, or coloured at both ends so that you do not lose the indication if you have to trim them.

[ak2m4]

@Colin Allen from talking to the factory and my own test the zinc coating they put on those springs affected the performance of the spring in terms of power and reliability over time.  Another reason why some brands use zinc plating is to help mask the poor quality of the steel underneath.   Believe me when I say I would gladly have a zinc coating on these as packing them into bags you get covered in grease. 

I did try colour coding the piston end of my springs but could never find a paint which wouldn't flake off.  I imagine some sort of powder coating would work fairly well but have to keep costs low otherwise before you know it paying £14 for a spring.  If anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions ?

Edited November 4, 2023 by ak2m4

[Colin Allen]

13 minutes ago, ak2m4 said:

@Colin Allen from talking to the factory and my own test the zinc coating they put on those springs affected the performance of the spring in terms of power and reliability over time.  Another reason why some brands use zinc plating is to help mask the poor quality of the steel underneath.   Believe me when I say I would gladly have a zinc coating on these as packing them into bags you get covered in grease. 

I did try colour coding the piston end of my springs but could never find a paint which wouldn't flake off.  I imagine some sort of powder coating would work fairly well but have to keep costs low otherwise before you know it paying £14 for a spring.  If anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions ?

Thanks.  I did wonder about what was obviously a coating on the Prometheus springs and how it would stand up to repeated use.  The paint, or whatever it was, on the ASG springs seemed pretty durable but I gave up using them as they were ridiculously long.

It doesn't matter to me as much now as I keep a record of which spring each RIF contains.

[ak2m4]

I'm due to test the new brushless motor this weekend and that will push my XT M110 test spring to around 1.5 million cycles.  It's not lost any power / size yet so interesting to see what the results are.  

[Colin Allen]

1 hour ago, ak2m4 said:

I'm due to test the new brushless motor this weekend and that will push my XT M110 test spring to around 1.5 million cycles.  It's not lost any power / size yet so interesting to see what the results are.  

Your XT springs do seem very good; I have not had any issues with them yet.

[Sewdhull]

6 hours ago, ak2m4 said:

@Colin Allen from talking to the factory and my own test the zinc coating they put on those springs affected the performance of the spring in terms of power and reliability over time.  Another reason why some brands use zinc plating is to help mask the poor quality of the steel underneath.   Believe me when I say I would gladly have a zinc coating on these as packing them into bags you get covered in grease. 

I did try colour coding the piston end of my springs but could never find a paint which wouldn't flake off.  I imagine some sort of powder coating would work fairly well but have to keep costs low otherwise before you know it paying £14 for a spring.  If anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions ?

Begadi etch or engrave the ground end of the spring.

Maybe add a plastic ring, similar to those birds have on Thier legs.

On shims...making them slightly different shapes for each thickness perhaps, tooling my be prohibitive there.

Honestly tho, I have calipers so if I really want to know the thickness I could measure them.

When shim tho, generally I'm not measuring the play, it's more trial and error and there's not really any reason to use one .3 over 3 .1s

[Shamal]

That's what I was thinking. Perhaps a dremil or similar to lightly engrave markings on spring.

[Sewdhull]

6 hours ago, ak2m4 said:

I'm due to test the new brushless motor this weekend and that will push my XT M110 test spring to around 1.5 million cycles.  It's not lost any power / size yet so interesting to see what the results are.  

I'm keen on your springs for my future things once I use those I have.

Even keener on brushless motors, if you ever do some comparisons I'd love it.

[Colin Allen]

59 minutes ago, Shamal said:

That's what I was thinking. Perhaps a dremil or similar to lightly engrave markings on spring.

Cost!  That is a manual activity that would push the price up.  Even doing it for oneself would be tricky as it is such a small surface area.  I wonder how Begadi manage it at that price.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Colin Allen

[ak2m4]

1 hour ago, Colin Allen said:

I wonder how Begadi manage it at that price.

 

Yep I can imagine the ball-ache that would cause, I imagine they have their own machine and some poor guy has to align them all, haha good fun

1 hour ago, Sewdhull said:

Even keener on brushless motors, if you ever do some comparisons I'd love it.

 

I'll have some video on it very soon, it's quite impressive 🙂

[Sewdhull]

2 hours ago, Colin Allen said:

Cost!  That is a manual activity that would push the price up.  Even doing it for oneself would be tricky as it is such a small surface area.  I wonder how Begadi manage it at that price.

To me they look laser etched, which is probably done in batches

[ak2m4]

11 minutes ago, Sewdhull said:

To me they look laser etched, which is probably done in batches

 

Yep batches of course but still expensive, even in China!  I've noticed a real hike in laser etching cost recently.  I asked one factory to do 500 nozzles and the cost was around 40p each, that's a huge addon to the end price and hard to justify.  

Edited November 4, 2023 by ak2m4

[Colin Allen]

1 hour ago, Sewdhull said:

To me they look laser etched, which is probably done in batches

Yes, they probably are, but it is still an expensive process.

[Rogerborg]

12 hours ago, ak2m4 said:

could never find a paint which wouldn't flake off

 

Plasti Dip?

[ak2m4]

42 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

 

Plasti Dip?

 

tried it, sadly can pick it off super easily but something like that is ideal, just dip each spring in a different colour and then hang up to dry, very quick process and cheap to do.