Leon Paul Reels

[murphmcca]

Our club has a newer set of Leon Paul reels. Im fighting intermittent high resistance on the C line of one and the B line of the other. It does happen dureing rotation. Im reasonably sure it's not the wires. Have burnished the contacts and commutators. Retensioned(bent) the contact arms. It will work for a few minutes after that. I need some new ideas. No problems with our older set. It's driving me crazy.

[DHCJr]

This is a long shot. There are screws and nuts that hold the contacts and are part of the electrical circuit. The other point is connections for the floor cord could be loose.

Since you mentioned you have older Leon Pauls a quick way to more isolate the problem is to swictch the contacts between the old and new and see if the problem travels.

[murphmcca]

Thanks for the ideas. I have checked the screws and there nuts and they are tight. When the problem occures I switch in our other set of reels and no more problems so that rules out the floor cords. It seems to be problem with the contacts but I cant seem to come up with a solution. I can rotate the reel until it show a high resistance, about 12 ohms, then apply pressure to the brushes and the reading drops. It's not always in the same spot of the rotation either. You may be right that I just need to replace the brushes. I'm not going to vebture into our reels that are problem free in fear of creating one.

Thanks again for your help

[Tomas N]

I have an old LP reel and the C line flakes out intermittently. I've been using it for epee all summer and every once in a while the bell guard of my epee doesn't ground. I take the reel home, take it apart, try to recreate the problem, stare at it for a while, but it only happens once in a while and it never seems to go kaput on my workbench. It's definitely the reel though as I've switched around everything else (weapon, body cord, floor cord, fencer, side of the strip) and it's always that reel). I switched the spool brush assembly with another reel and the problem stays with the original reel, so it doesn't seem to be the assembly. I've also taken the fencer-end socket apart are rewired it. At this point, would you suggest replacing the cable? The reels are probably 1970s vintage and the covering on the spool cable is frayed/fuzzy in a bunch of places.

Tomas

[DHCJr]

It could be the wire, but let us first check. In the reel, you will find where the wire is connected before going on to the commutator. Take one probe there and another directly to the wire at the body cord end and check the resistance and also move it. If it is more than a couple of ohms, it needs to be replaced.

There also could have developed cold solder joints. Also check from that point to the commutator ring. I believe C is the top one, but it could be the bottom.

[yeoldearmourer]

The order on the rings is A top B middle C bottom ring