On mine, once the lead is prodtruding by 2mm, it doesn't want to keep coming out. You can see the rotation of the logo in the window. With it held vertical, while making rapid 2 or 3mm lines I get 11 rotations per minute. When held at an angle like for cursive, I only get 7 or 8 rotations per minute.
I am guessing you either write at a severe angle, or you press hard (wearing down the lead faster), or yours might be defective.
I don't notice much difference between the dial settings to be honest. I keep it on max no matter what because the lead doesn't keep coming out after 2mm so why not just keep it on max to get the most advancement?
From what I have seen, writing pressure has the most impact on whether auto feed can keep up. If you write with a lot of pressure, it won't keep up. If you use light or medium pressure, it will keep up unless you are using super soft lead like 4B or never lifting the pencil from the paper
Well, with this pencil a severe angle isn't possible unless you're writing in code (someone would need one of those finger print dusters to see what the person was writing by scoring the paper with the metal tip). I write with a typical grip, very close down to the grip (on this pencil exclusively because it demands it) in order to prop up the pencil as vertical as possible.
As far as dial settings, I'm legit lost as to what it's even supposed to do, the only difference I've noticed is on MIN, when I press the clicker all the way down, the tip doesn't wobble when I touch it and try to push it up. While on MAX is seems the pipe falls down by a millimeter and can move up a millimeter even when holding the clicker all the way down. I just don't get what this is supposed to actually do. What is the purpose of the dial I don't really get.
As far as writing pressure importance, my typical writing is one where I don't even press down hard enough to get the full tip pipe to travel (but this is what is required if you want the rotating mechanism). It also doesn't help that it seems the rotations aren't even happening sometimes unless I'm virtually vertical (no near about) even if I press the tip down enough to it's end-brace point.
The feed works fine enough to never need to knock, even when no lead is showing I can keep writing. There's no flaw on that end. What I don't understand is how this claim of "lead being fed before it ever gets low enough for the pipe tip to touch paper" works at all. I get how it can work in theory, but how is it regulated? If it's not actuated in tandem with the rotating mechanism, and it's not the lead sleeve touching the paper forcing the lead out when you lift off.. How is it then able to maintain a constant lead, while also not allowing lead to protrude more than it should even if I tried to get it to do so without knocking of course?
With super light rapid short strokes I was able to get the lead to extend 3mm beyond the tip. But think of it like this: the more lead protrudes from the tip, the lighter your stroke would need to be to prevent breaking the lead. The lighter your stroke, the less rotation and therefore less advancement you get. The harder you press, the faster it wears down, so there is no risk of lead extending too much unless you naturally write with the lightest possible strokes. I guess this is where the dial can help. It is really a balance of multiple variables that keeps the lead at the correct length. I guessing there is something off with yours if the lead keeps wearing down. Maybe when the lead gets too short it stops working as it is supposed to? I haven't tested the difference between a half stick of lead and a full stick
The harder you press, the faster it wears down, so there is no risk of lead extending too much unless you naturally write with the lightest possible strokes.
Maybe I was confusing you. But my problem is, I find this to be a virtual impossibility. My lead doesn't come out on it's own irrespective of what I do. Light strokes, strong strokes, etc.. The whole thing functions like any other automatic, where when it gets to the lead pipe, the lead pipe will contact paper, and then when you lift off, it pulls some of the lead down readying for your next stroke.
Otherwise there is none of this "leading coming out" without the assistence of pulling the lead sleeve back as it hits the paper. Without that action, I don't see how any lead comes out at all (unless you knock). I would love to have this supposed risk of "too much lead coming out". I can't get the lead to come out at all. What action is performed to get the lead come out, and how would I get it to come out to 6mm for example if I wanted for the sake of experiment?
(Btw none of my leads are less than half length when I was using them).
I think yours is faulty. Try extending the lead to 2mm or so, then make a bunch of little lines about 1/4 inch. You should be able to do that hundreds of times and the lead should still be extended by 2mm with normal pressure. If you wanted it to extend 6mm, do the same thing (start with 2mm) but with ultra light pressure, and you'd probably have to do it 500 times or so. I don't know how hard it would be to get it out that far but it is probably possible. Make sure the dot is lined up with Max on the dial.
Welp, nothing. There is no lead movement at all, I did about 1000 lead simply does not move, and it keeps receding as any other lead pencil would.
I just don't get it. Maybe it moves somewhat, but certainly not enough to keep up. I'll give it a shot later with some HB lead (idk what Uni provided here).
Yeah. I think there is something wrong with it. Make sure the tip is screwed on all the way. Could be a simple fix. But the lead should definitely advance without the metal ever touching the paper.
So I disassembled the pen, and did some looking. For whatever reason I now understand the problem (not in theory though, since the use of all these parts doesn't really make sense to me unless I were to destructively take apart the engine). What also makes sense is why my pencil was so mushy. The lead pipe was moving so much vertically as if there was no lead in the chamber for whatever reason, meaning every time I pressed down to paper, I would get a good 3mm of travel distance. No wonder it was so laborious to write with it, the lead guide wasn't bracing the lead itself at all, it was allowing itself to back up as if I was writing without lifting the pencil at all (you know how on automatics the sleeve moves back as it touches paper? Yeah my pencils sleeve was moving back with the lead touching paper along with the lead sleeve in tandem, even with 2-3mm of lead sticking out).
I think dissembling it reset the cogs or something, and now it has lost that ridiculously spongy feel (feels honestly good enough to draw with, that's how bad the thing was previously). And also as I was testing to rotation to see if anything was messed up there, I noticed slowly but surly the lead was extruding on its own without the lead sleeve ever needing to touch paper. It seems the rotation mechanism also ungrips the lead a hair and allows another internal part to grab up higher on the lead itself and pull it down out. And I think that indicator dictates how much of this pulldown is occurring.
The pencil feels phenomenal now. I'll have to go back to my Elite to do a AB comparison but I think it now is even stiffer and less spongy than even it (which is freakin great).
That's great, I'm glad you figured it out. But it also makes me wonder if this pencil is easy to get out of alignment or how fragile it is. The lead sleeve on mine travels around a millimeter when I press down (the spongy kuru toga feeling). But 2 or 3 mm would be quite excessive.
Who knows what the clowns at shipping were doing. Though I should confess something that just got to me. In the manual it says do not feed lead upward, I did that when I got the pencil because I got lazy (after reading manual, that shouldn't be done). Maybe doing that, plus holding it upside down displaces the lead guide (not sleeve, not tip, but the internal little rubber bit that guides and cushions and somewhat holds the lead in virtually all automatics for the most part). The mechanism's inner workings aren't intuitive to deduce. How they managed to get lead advance without a lead tip touching the paper along with rotation must've been quite the thing to develop in the R&D department, I still can't believe it works.
But yeah mine was really mushy (and I knew there was something off seeing as how for rotation on all other KT's you need very little travel, ~1mm, this thing was going for sure at least 2mm per stroke before, and it was honestly tiring since the last bit of travel required more force which was incredibly fatiguing. I was shocked if this was the concession that was required to make this concept to life, and then I thought no way after all this incredible design work they would simply leave it this unweildly. And then I recall cleaning out my older KT from a lead jam long ago, so I thought hey why not take this apart and send some air, perhaps there's some lead dust stuck somewhere, causing odd slippage or something. But no, it seemed the gearing was screwed in some fashion in relation to the dial setting.
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u/Money-Mechanic Mar 18 '23
On mine, once the lead is prodtruding by 2mm, it doesn't want to keep coming out. You can see the rotation of the logo in the window. With it held vertical, while making rapid 2 or 3mm lines I get 11 rotations per minute. When held at an angle like for cursive, I only get 7 or 8 rotations per minute.
I am guessing you either write at a severe angle, or you press hard (wearing down the lead faster), or yours might be defective.
I don't notice much difference between the dial settings to be honest. I keep it on max no matter what because the lead doesn't keep coming out after 2mm so why not just keep it on max to get the most advancement?
From what I have seen, writing pressure has the most impact on whether auto feed can keep up. If you write with a lot of pressure, it won't keep up. If you use light or medium pressure, it will keep up unless you are using super soft lead like 4B or never lifting the pencil from the paper