CNC coilwinder
Posted by
Multi-Volti Devices (Murray)
on 2002-02-14 22:38:44 UTC
Hello:
Apologies for the bandwidth on my coilwinder project, whcih is why I joined
this group, to learn about stepper motors and drives, but it's an
entertaining story, and might belong in the annals of the Dilbert comic.
I am working on a bobbin winder and upgrading an ancient toroid winder.
Unfortunately I keep changing what I want to accomplish because I find new
goodies on eBay, so I haven't gotten very far.
My first one (which I actually did build) was at a former employer and I
built it as poorly and nasty-ugly looking as I could manage to prove a
point. My employer had a $4000 desktop winder in house but it belonged to a
company they did work for but had a falling-out with. They refused to buy a
replacement.
I was stuck winding by hand and with a cobbled up drill press.
So I made a technical abomination out of a dead Sears electric screwdriver
(non-replaceable NiCad battery was it's demise), a forklift pallet some
other junk and a $1000 Sorensen power supply they already happened to have
paid for. I hoped it would be such an eyesore, I'd shame them into procuring
a legitimate winder.
It worked fine, but they kept the wretched thing for about another 7 years.
I just asked about 6 months ago if I could take a picture of it and they let
me have it...they had cleaned it up, sadly...I wanted it in it's original
glory.
The driver was tied down to a scrap board with a hairpin mounting strap and
had a chunk of plastic integrated-circuit-storage-tube tie-wrapped to the
shaft as a 'lump' to hit a microswitch with as it rotated. The lever
microswitch was bolted to a little panel meter counter with a front panel
reset. I later added a Mallory Sonalert with an annoying high-pitched piezo
beep so I could audibly keep track along with the click-click-click of the
microswitch. Glancing away from the coil winding process to see the counter
led to some scramble-wound coils I didn't intend.
The new design intends to use a NEMA 42 3-stack stepper motor (in case I
ever need to wind coils from copper pipe!) and one of Mariss's 201A's. I
picked up a Compumotor 2-Axis PC-connected indexer to drive it. The wire
traverse mechanism will use a single axis linear table, stepper driven also.
The toroid winder had a variac-speed-controlled dc motor, but I picked up a
4-quadrant SCR drive for it, and later decided I would replace the belt
driven variable-speed transmission that controlled the core rotation with a
rotary stepper table and CNC control (probably using a Compumotor C Drive
microstepping drive because I have it and the table motor is unipolar).
Latest thinking is to take the extra space salvaged by removal of the
variable speed transmission and put the bobbin winder at that end, making a
2-headed 'Hydra' winder. I picked up a variety of Veeder Root programmable
process controllers and counters on eBay...my poor credit card.
The state of my credit card is pretty much the reason the project isn't done
yet...I have to sell off some other projects to relieve some of that
$-pressure to finish off the winder(s).
Wire tensioning is another issue, but I had plans for that too.
Murray
Apologies for the bandwidth on my coilwinder project, whcih is why I joined
this group, to learn about stepper motors and drives, but it's an
entertaining story, and might belong in the annals of the Dilbert comic.
I am working on a bobbin winder and upgrading an ancient toroid winder.
Unfortunately I keep changing what I want to accomplish because I find new
goodies on eBay, so I haven't gotten very far.
My first one (which I actually did build) was at a former employer and I
built it as poorly and nasty-ugly looking as I could manage to prove a
point. My employer had a $4000 desktop winder in house but it belonged to a
company they did work for but had a falling-out with. They refused to buy a
replacement.
I was stuck winding by hand and with a cobbled up drill press.
So I made a technical abomination out of a dead Sears electric screwdriver
(non-replaceable NiCad battery was it's demise), a forklift pallet some
other junk and a $1000 Sorensen power supply they already happened to have
paid for. I hoped it would be such an eyesore, I'd shame them into procuring
a legitimate winder.
It worked fine, but they kept the wretched thing for about another 7 years.
I just asked about 6 months ago if I could take a picture of it and they let
me have it...they had cleaned it up, sadly...I wanted it in it's original
glory.
The driver was tied down to a scrap board with a hairpin mounting strap and
had a chunk of plastic integrated-circuit-storage-tube tie-wrapped to the
shaft as a 'lump' to hit a microswitch with as it rotated. The lever
microswitch was bolted to a little panel meter counter with a front panel
reset. I later added a Mallory Sonalert with an annoying high-pitched piezo
beep so I could audibly keep track along with the click-click-click of the
microswitch. Glancing away from the coil winding process to see the counter
led to some scramble-wound coils I didn't intend.
The new design intends to use a NEMA 42 3-stack stepper motor (in case I
ever need to wind coils from copper pipe!) and one of Mariss's 201A's. I
picked up a Compumotor 2-Axis PC-connected indexer to drive it. The wire
traverse mechanism will use a single axis linear table, stepper driven also.
The toroid winder had a variac-speed-controlled dc motor, but I picked up a
4-quadrant SCR drive for it, and later decided I would replace the belt
driven variable-speed transmission that controlled the core rotation with a
rotary stepper table and CNC control (probably using a Compumotor C Drive
microstepping drive because I have it and the table motor is unipolar).
Latest thinking is to take the extra space salvaged by removal of the
variable speed transmission and put the bobbin winder at that end, making a
2-headed 'Hydra' winder. I picked up a variety of Veeder Root programmable
process controllers and counters on eBay...my poor credit card.
The state of my credit card is pretty much the reason the project isn't done
yet...I have to sell off some other projects to relieve some of that
$-pressure to finish off the winder(s).
Wire tensioning is another issue, but I had plans for that too.
Murray