vibrator completed, i cleaned the points with wet sand paper and water, then i polished them to try to get all the grit out even tho you can't see or feel it
hope it worked
photos attached of one point, before and after side by side, the all looked that bad.
i cleaned the can off with a bit of toilet bowl cleaner to freshen up the zinc plating without removing the red ink
the gaps are set to about 3-4 thousands of an inch, photo taken before fine tuning them
ideally the on-off time would be 50-50 but that would mean a gap of 0 which isn't possible with this design because then the contraption wouldn't start oscillating
the armature must clear the coil post by at least 5-10 thousands of an inch, if it is too close even not rubbing it leads to sporadic oscillations, i was getting a beat frequency where the armature was going back and forth between spending more time on one contact then the other at about 1 Hz rate, i finally figured out the solution after an hour of readjusting the points with no success
i used an oscilloscope to look at the duty cycle and frequency, it's not the most accurate tool for measuring frequency but for the application good enough.
i did many start up cycles and a short burn-in before crimping it up, then an hour run post crimping. this vibrator is running exceptionally quiet and smooth
next step gonna look at getting the main chassis cleaned up and sourcing some replacement parts
-s
