Um.. guilty as charged!

I made a set of these punch blocks for Nick some time ago.. a fun project!  I'd never made anything that needed hardening, but it turned out to be fairly easy, thanks to several friends who also have machine shops (and more importantly, ovens and surface grinders).

If there's a lot of interest in this project, I could probably be persuaded to make a few more of the things, as I still have all of the carbide tooling required.   I could also put Nick's (K4NYW) original sketches, some info from Teletype, and my drawings for the parts on line at "jptronics.org", if anyone wants them.  I'm thinking NIck may have already shared these drawings on navy-radio.com, however.

Nick also gave me a bunch of information about the electromechanical bits in the BRPE, including punch timing, solenoid characteristics, and much else.  Was thinking about building a punch controller (likely based on the excellent little Raspberry Pi microcontrollers), and some custom solenoid drivers.  I haven't made any progress on this, thanks to other stuff going on, but it seems like a completely do-able project, from what I've read so far.

73, John K4OZY

On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 7:25 AM Nick England <navy.radio@gmail.com> wrote:
I have something better than my own Bridgeport milling machine - I have a buddy with a Bridgeport. John Poulton K4OZY took on the challenge of making the new 5-level punch block parts. 

Nick England K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com


On Sun, Mar 30, 2025 at 9:20 PM Jones, Douglas W via GreenKeys <greenkeys@mailman.qth.net> wrote:
From: W2HX <w2hx@w2hx.com> -- Sunday, March 30, 2025 7:31 PM
> I just wonder if there is any hope of converting this to 8 or 5 bit

See the end of this web page for enough information to manufacture the parts needed to convert your 6-bit punch block assembly to a 5-bit punch block.  I think it was nick@navyradio.com who worked this up, but the metadata on the PDFs say John Poulton:
-- https://www.navy-radio.com/tty/brpe.htm

(the notes on the plans suggest he might have made 6 kits.  To use one, you need the cast-iron center part of an old 6-bit block, plus most of the small parts removed from that block except the actual punch guide plates and die plate.)

If you want an 8-bit block, you'll also need to have the cast-iron center part machined.  I've been working on drawings of that:
-- https://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/UI-8/log2025.shtml#2025-03-20

Once, several years ago, a lot of 10 8-bit BRPE punch blocks showed up on eBay.  Despite a serious effort to get it, someone not on GreenKeys got it.  We tried to contact the buyer to get a block and got no reply.  Who knows where those blocks went.  I haven't seen an 8-bit punch block for sale since.

              Doug Jones
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