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Jones & Lamson FC-14 Comparator

M.B. Naegle

Diamond
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Location
Conroe, TX USA
It seems that the more I try to get caught up, that's when the projects I can't live without pop-up.

I had to schedule a service call over to Austin and was going to be out of the shop all day yesterday between picking a machine up from a customer, dropping it off at our Yoakum shop, and driving across the terribly large state of Texas.

Well, my mistake was looking on Ebay and discovering this jem in Corpus at auction. We have been wanting one for years but money always went elseware and we found other ways to check stuff. I thought about it and dropping down there would add another 5 or so hours of driving, but it was doable. I bid and won it for $115. I considered it a fair price as I bought it sight-unseen and as discovered later the coastal air hasn't been fair to the exposed metal.

So far as I can tell it's all there. No extra screens but a couple extra lenses and a sparce bit of tooling. Wiring and electronics might be salvigable, but I'm researching doing some retrofiting.

This unit apparently was bought off of one of the naval bases in corpus by a gentleman who used it in his garage. He gave it to his buddy, the guy I bought it from, who says it was alot more machine than they ever needed, and it was last lit-up about 6 years ago.

So.... another project.:(:D Need to rearrange the inspection area. I'm a little tired today as I was on the road between 4:00am and 11:00pm.:crazy:

I'm still googling and I'll post as I make progress. Anyone have any wisdom they could impart? I need to get a line on a manual for sure.
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Its an Ebay Miracle!!!:cloud9:

The old Mercury Arc lamp system still works!!! The lens selection carasel works too. The fan on top of the side electrical box is locked up but it looks like a generic replacement will fix that. The Reflection attachment on the side still needs some love and the vertical adjustment motor isn't coming on yet.
 
With the right lens and overlay those machines are incredible, amazing what can be measured without touching a part. Got rid of mine years ago, actually scrapped it and salvaged the tooling which was salable at the time. I may still have a manual for that machine, I'll have to check. Only advice I have is just don't touch the mirror, unlike others the mirror finish is on the front surface. J&L Metrology and Fellows merged a while back, I was able to get a manual and a bottle of lens cleaner and a few odds and ends when I contacted them then, maybe still there.
Dan
 
One of our guys was saying that though this machine is nicely equipped, the top-notch ones are set up so you can see a mirror image of the part and not just the outline.
...
Well I got the reflection attachment going and learned what it does!
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Won't he be excited in the morning!

All three fans are running now too. (We had a couple spairs on the shelf)
 
It's on the floor in the Inspection area now. I hoisted it off the skid last night with a lifting eye and set it on pipes to roll it into place. Our inspection area is a 12' by 10' caged area. At our old shop "inspection" was scattered throughout the shop. Now we're outgrowing the cage. Later, we want to upgrade from a 4-3 granite block to a 6-4 and when that happens we'll have to stretch out the cage or go on a diet.

A few questions:

The Mercury Arc system isn't always starting right away. The bulb will glow when the button is depressed but doesn't always fire up. Is this normal, old age, or is there a specific part to fix? I'm thinking long term we'll upgrade with the new tungsten lamp system.

The electric height control is still dead. It looks like a rat lived in the lower compartment for awhile and most everything down there saw considerable corrosion. I cleaned the vacuum tube board and checked that all the sockets were clear. It light's up when the machine is on but no motion and if I leave it on it will randomly spark and trip a breaker. SO, I'm thinking it either needs considerable servicing or more likely, replacement. I'm trying to understand what is that system accomplishing? Does it just function as a complicated reversing drum switch or does it change speed somehow? What am I looking for if I were to replace/upgrade the system?

The stock screen's lines are wore down to faint shadows. Can they be re-lithographed?

I'd like to Add a DRO to this machine soon. The longitudinal travel is fairly straight-forward, but where would I mount a scale for the height adjustment? It seems that the stages swivel action would make things tricky. All our other machines use Acu-rite DRO's so I'll likely stick with that for this unit.

I need to make a call to J&L and talk to them. From what I've seen online, they stand behind these old machines, but are there certain things I'm better doing/sourcing myself? I have a service manual coming in the mail, so that will help. It looks like I'm missing some parts from under that table. I think it was removed at some point for transit and they lost half the rollers and whatever connects the adjusting screw to the table.
 
A couple of tips from another J & L comparator owner:

The stage on these units has loose floating rolling elements. Be very careful to dismantle it prior to shipment. The rollers may indent the ways. Sorry I didn't know to warn you prior to your acquisition.

Second, the mercury arc bulbs have been discontinued and to my knowledge are no longer manufactured. Probably due to the fact that they cost @ $700.00 to buy new. Now you will only find old stocked ones. Good news is there are retrofits available to halogen bulbs that cost @ $15.00. You should upgrade as soon as you can.

Agree with Danny VanVoorn not to touch the mirror. Screen should be cleaned with mild soap and water only or you'll loose the lines. New screens are available but be sitting down when they quote you price @ $300.00 each.

Nice features with that comparator. I think you did very well. Locate a local service tech to line it up for you and assess the optics. Good luck!

Best Regards,
Bob
 
A couple of tips from another J & L comparator owner:

The stage on these units has loose floating rolling elements. Be very careful to dismantle it prior to shipment. The rollers may indent the ways. Sorry I didn't know to warn you prior to your acquisition.

Second, the mercury arc bulbs have been discontinued and to my knowledge are no longer manufactured. Probably due to the fact that they cost @ $700.00 to buy new. Now you will only find old stocked ones. Good news is there are retrofits available to halogen bulbs that cost @ $15.00. You should upgrade as soon as you can.

Agree with Danny VanVoorn not to touch the mirror. Screen should be cleaned with mild soap and water only or you'll loose the lines. New screens are available but be sitting down when they quote you price @ $300.00 each.

Nice features with that comparator. I think you did very well. Locate a local service tech to line it up for you and assess the optics. Good luck!

Best Regards,
Bob

I took the table off when I loaded it, but all that was under it was lithium grease and the pendulum weight. Some of the parts were in the cabinet but others are probably in someone's junk drawer somewhere.

I just got off the phone with J&L. Very nice and encouraging to talk too. They're emailing me a quote for DRO brackets, Height and Projection retrofits, and a screen catalog.

I'm glad I got such a deal on this thing cause it's going to come together on a payment plan. Part here, retrofit there, eventually a high end machine:D.
 
It's on the floor in the Inspection area now. I hoisted it off the skid last night with a lifting eye and set it on pipes to roll it into place. Our inspection area is a 12' by 10' caged area. At our old shop "inspection" was scattered throughout the shop. Now we're outgrowing the cage. Later, we want to upgrade from a 4-3 granite block to a 6-4 and when that happens we'll have to stretch out the cage or go on a diet.

A few questions:

The Mercury Arc system isn't always starting right away. The bulb will glow when the button is depressed but doesn't always fire up. Is this normal, old age, or is there a specific part to fix? I'm thinking long term we'll upgrade with the new tungsten lamp system.

The electric height control is still dead. It looks like a rat lived in the lower compartment for awhile and most everything down there saw considerable corrosion. I cleaned the vacuum tube board and checked that all the sockets were clear. It light's up when the machine is on but no motion and if I leave it on it will randomly spark and trip a breaker. SO, I'm thinking it either needs considerable servicing or more likely, replacement. I'm trying to understand what is that system accomplishing? Does it just function as a complicated reversing drum switch or does it change speed somehow? What am I looking for if I were to replace/upgrade the system?

The stock screen's lines are wore down to faint shadows. Can they be re-lithographed?

I'd like to Add a DRO to this machine soon. The longitudinal travel is fairly straight-forward, but where would I mount a scale for the height adjustment? It seems that the stages swivel action would make things tricky. All our other machines use Acu-rite DRO's so I'll likely stick with that for this unit.

I need to make a call to J&L and talk to them. From what I've seen online, they stand behind these old machines, but are there certain things I'm better doing/sourcing myself? I have a service manual coming in the mail, so that will help. It looks like I'm missing some parts from under that table. I think it was removed at some point for transit and they lost half the rollers and whatever connects the adjusting screw to the table.

May I suggest you look at a Metronics Quadra-Check DRO unit. I love mine. Enter 3 measurements and it will calculate the radius, 2 points to get an angle. Skew function, lots of great measuring features a conventional DRO does not have.
 
There were some spair parts in the cabinet that make me think someone scavanged some stuff off another machine at one point. I had 2 sets of cylindrical rollers and their cages, but I thought that the front rollers for the table were ball bearings. The J&L guy said they should be cylindrical like the back, so it turns out I've got both sets of rollers! Still need some other parts for the table though.
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I'm following along because I have a J&L I'd like to get working. I thought it was a FC-14 but I just went out and looked and all the name I see is Vertac 14. If anyone has a manual I'd like to buy one or I'd be glad to scan it and make it available to others.

I'd to know more about the LED conversion too, the original lamps can't be long for this world.

Mine seems to work, the lights light and the lens turret changes, but it seems real dusty inside because the image on the screen is not distinct, and I'm afraid to start cleaning without more knowlege.

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I'm following along because I have a J&L I'd like to get working. I thought it was a FC-14 but I just went out and looked and all the name I see is Vertac 14. If anyone has a manual I'd like to buy one or I'd be glad to scan it and make it available to others.

I'd to know more about the LED conversion too, the original lamps can't be long for this world.

Mine seems to work, the lights light and the lens turret changes, but it seems real dusty inside because the image on the screen is not distinct, and I'm afraid to start cleaning without more knowlege.

View attachment 193767View attachment 193768View attachment 193769View attachment 193770View attachment 193771

Yours looks to have all the same functions as mine, just with a smaller stage.

They said an LED conversion runs anywhere from $900 to $1500 with a 5 year warranty. From what I understood, the LED light gives you more control of the light in terms of brightness, intensity, etc. It's also simpler as it eliminates most of the extra electrical for the lamp control. We'll probably end up going with the Tungsten conversion on ours. It's similar in function to the Mercury Arc and is cheaper, It runs around $900 with parts trade-in. For now, I'm trying to make the old Mercury Arc last so We can invest first in a vertical adjustment retrofit.

I'm new to these things coming from a material-removal perspective. I see 3 axis and think 3 dimensional motion, but only "X"(longitudinal) and "Z"(vertical) move the part and image. The "Y" (cross travel) axis is for focusing the image and I found If you focus on a higher magnification image (100X), the lower magnification images are much clearer.

I've been using alcohol on the lenses for cleaning. My screen's lines are already gone so I used it there too.

On Edit: I see your lens points down, so then "Z" is your focusing axis.
 
May I suggest you look at a Metronics Quadra-Check DRO unit. I love mine. Enter 3 measurements and it will calculate the radius, 2 points to get an angle. Skew function, lots of great measuring features a conventional DRO does not have.

I'm researching this right now. They look perfect for this application. It looks like a 2 axis QC-220 will work with Senc 50 or 150 scales (most everything in our shop is Senc 150 so it would be nice to keep that consistent), but the QC-221 ALSO has an input for an electronic protractor :scratchchin:. I'm wondering if that would be useful to tie into the screen rotation for higher accuracy and ease of setting zero at any point of rotation. Would I need a rotary encoder or is there a special protractor encoder for such an application?
 
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This is what I've got for tooling so far. The riser and part of the micrometer stop were in the cabinet and were rusted the worst out of everything. I was very luckey that with some media blasting, Kroil, and gentle persuasion, every piece came apart and cleaned up. Unfortinatly its heavily pitted but it seems that it will still function and the carbide anvils are fine. The micrometer head's plating was stripped leaving the potmetal exposed. After polishing on a lathe, I painted it silver and the numbers and lines are still visible. I might throw it in with some of my 53' chevy's potmetal parts to get replated one day. The V-channel between the anvils is interesting as you can stack gage blocks, pins, or other reference parts in it to set a dimension.

The riser was also pitted but is still flat and usable.

The rottary table actually came out out of our tooling. For the longest time I thought it was for an Atlas mill or something but now I'm 90% sure its a comparator stage. It's not J&L but I can make clamps to adapt it.
 
There were some spair parts in the cabinet that make me think someone scavanged some stuff off another machine at one point. I had 2 sets of cylindrical rollers and their cages, but I thought that the front rollers for the table were ball bearings. The J&L guy said they should be cylindrical like the back, so it turns out I've got both sets of rollers! Still need some other parts for the table though.
View attachment 193759
View attachment 193760

Hello MB,

Those rollers for the front v way should be staggard like crossed roller ways. Example:https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1lj8KKpXXXXc9XXXXq6xXFXXXG/2491179/HTB1lj8KKpXXXXc9XXXXq6xXFXXXG.jpg

Hope this helps

Best Regards,
Bob
 
Hello Everyone. If you need information or parts for Jones & Lamson comparators I have over 51 years experience working on them. In 1972 I designed the very first lamp retrofit to replace the SAH-250-B mercury arc lamp. We are the world's largest builder of J&L comparator lamp retrofits. Our systems are being used in six of the world's seven continents. Best regards. Richard Snell
 
Update on this project:

The Mercury arc unit finally kicked the bucket. I was hoping it was something in the "Novalite" control that powers the lamp as there were a couple of resistors that would smoke when I tried to fire it up, but after replacing them (J&L was very helpful in supplying the parts and diagnostics notes for the wiring), I think the bulb was shot, which though they stopped making them only a few years ago, you can still buy them for the low low price of $1500.00:eek:.

So I went with a simple retrofit. I removed the Novalite control all together and spliced the wires going in and out of it, replaced the start button with a toggle switch, and rewired the socket. I bought a 120v GE quartzline EGG lamp (part #39137), and.... now the lamp runs off of 120v power with a toggle to shut it off independent from the machine (to keep the fans running a little longer).

Works really nice once I got the new bulb focused in, but it runs HOT!. Enough that whoever is using the machine needs to keep their hands off of the projector housing. But that's nothing a Caution sticker won't fix. All the same, I'll probably upgrade to one of the "professional" retrofits in the future if I ever get to totally rebuild this comparator (it would be nice to eliminate the rust from the machine entirely and give it a new coat of paint). I think the low voltage kits run cooler.

On top of that, I've also assembled a fairly complete assortment of stage fixturing. Including:
- A second 3" riser which I ground with our other one so they are a matched set.
- A set of 8" centers (meaning we can support up to 14" diameter round work).
- Another rotary indexing table (this one's an actual J&L so it fits the table)
- A vise holding fixture
- A couple V-blocks in different orientations
- And an angle platform

I also bought a 1" wide toolmakers vise which I plan to grind the sides down so it'll fit the rotary indexer and the vise holding fixture (7/8" wide slot i believe). I also found an almost complete set of Lufkin length standard rods to use with the micrometer table movement. They're in 1" increments from 1"-7".

I'm making a new hood/curtain assembly as the home-made one that came with it was too small, didn't block enough light, and got in the way of the screen rotation. The new one's longer and I'll hang some black-out curtains around it once the paint is dry on Monday.

I'm also waiting for some parts from J&L which include a DRO mount for the vertical adjustment. Then comes finding scales and a Metronics display.
 
This project is still going. Three issues at hand:

The powered vertical movement is still dead. I removed the motor and oiled up the column, so now it can be moved up and down by hand, but this is terribly slow to a major fault. I think what killed the power movement was the bank of vacuum tubes that controls it as it was heavily corroded. I have 3 options, find a good "antique electronics guy" that can go through the vacuum tube bank and get it going, purchase a retrofit kit (kinda pricey), or make my own retrofit kit. It essentially is a reversing gear motor with sensitive variable speed.

Also the measuring system being analog slows this thing way down. I have the vertical scale mounting kit, but need to get a DRO with 6" and 8" scales. I really want one of the Metronics Quadra-chek kits with all of it's built in functions, but with their price tag, I'll likely settle for a simple system and keep a note pad handy for calculations.

And the last issue, The range of focus seems to be off. Parts only come into focus when they are close to the projector when they should be in the center of the table. The table only has about 1.5" of travel to focus, but that's based off of the table center. I talked to a J&L tech who suggested that a lens could be in backwards or something else has shifted. So tonight I'm cleaning the lens carasel, rubbing down more parts with light oil (combating the coastal air damage), and am trying to confirm that the projector is properly focused and sighted in. Hopefully this will also improve the picture definition as well.
 








 
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