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Cydrome Leader

Jon Elson wrote:
wrote:

So I was looking at some rotary encoders and a thought occurred to me
that maybe I could make a level with a digital display for checking
lathe bed twist. The highest number of pulses per revolution available
was 40,000. That works out to only .009 degrees. Seems pretty small
huh? But .009 degrees is 36 seconds! That works out to .0016" in 10
inches. My fairly inexpensive precision level shows .0005" in ten
inches. That's ten seconds resolution. And I know it's accurate
'cause I checked it with gauge blocks. I know, overkill, a feeler
gauge would be good enough. I guess I'll stick with the level and just
watch the analog bubble display.
Eric
Lucas made some liquid inclinometers that had a resistive liquid inside and
some traces on a PC board that turned it into essentially a potentiometer
with a plumb weight. Kind of worked. No friction, which is what would make
the mechanical version (weight and encoder) not work very well.

Surveying equipment all has built in levelling doo-dads. One I took apart
had some sort of glass vials filled with something noxious like iodine
that is used to adjust itself to a level position. There were electrodes
attached to the vials but I don't recall the details.

Anybody know what this stuff was?