Schatten winder motor

[achase4u]

You guys know what this is? I assume mine is burning out.

The first one I had quit turning, would turn real slow after a while, maybe 6 months to a year. I got my new one, and its now doing the same thing.

Itd probably be better to get another machine to wind on, but this works for me just fine.

So I couldnt get a response from Schatten, Im waiting on Stewmac, and Im curious as to whether or not I could just replace the motor myself. I know I could, I just need to find the right one....

Any help is appreciate, thanks!

[David Schwab]

I had the same thing happen. My machine is about three years old.

I emailed Schatten, and got a reply. They wanted me to send the winder in, but it was still working, albeit slower than usual, and I had pickups to wind. So I opted to get a new motor from them. Les Schatten even called me to discuss it.

That fixed the problem for about a month, but then it was worse than before.

So the real issue is the motor speed control. He thought that might be an issue.

Now I have a variable speed drill attached to the left axle to power the thing.

[achase4u]

Ugh. 400 dollars for a winder that works 6 months for me.

I need to find another way to do things then. Ive got a drill set up on mine. Very loud.

Thanks though - I might try to get something fixed. Well see.

[Bill M]

I have a Schatten winder and also had the same problem as you. I ended having a more heavy duty winder built. In my quest I found this placeENGINE
Look for winders in their index. Sometime they have some really good deals on older surplus commercial winding machines.

[David Schwab]

Sometime they have some really good deals on older surplus commercial winding machines.

This looks like a lot of machine, for $99.99:


HGR Industrial Surplus - We sell everything

[Bill M]

This looks like a lot of machine, for $99.99:

I've been checking out Verticle mills from this place. In the winder section did you take a look at the 5 Rea magnet wire winders. The programable counters on them are worth more than they are asking for the whole machines. I bought 1 a couple days ago and will report when I receive it. I just had to have it.

[David Schwab]

I've been checking out Verticle mills from this place. In the winder section did you take a look at the 5 Rea magnet wire winders. The programable counters on them are worth more than they are asking for the whole machines. I bought 1 a couple days ago and will report when I receive it. I just had to have it.

I didn't see these the first time.



I just picked up one of those Durant counters on eBay not long ago.

New they go for about $600! Took me a while to find a replacement relay for it, but then I got one pretty cheap.

It's going into a future winder project... once I decide what that is.

[Bill M]

Dave, I think one of those winders is calling your name!!!!!!!!Seriously they dont give much info on what they sell. If you call them, as I did, they will walk out and look at the unit and tell you anything that you want to know. Such as the rea winder has a reverse switch, speed control, and a jack for what I think is for a foot controller. Even if they need some work they are much cheaper than a Schatten winder and probably much more heavy duty.

[David King]

HGR is a good reason to move to Ohio.
I can't imagine spending money on a Schatten winder. WHY DON'T THEY PUT A BIGGER MOTOR on that thing already. It would cost them an extra $5 per unit. Maybe Schatten got his training in Detroit? He needs to think like Pontiac for a minute instead of metro Geo.

[achase4u]

I dont know what Im getting myself into - but maybe I should pick up one of those 199 winders.

I wouldnt know what to do with the damn thing if it had parts problems. Looks like a whole lot more machine for the money than the schatten.

[salvarsan]

You guys know what this is? I assume mine is burning out.

I remember reading that the Schatten motor is a VCR player motor and that MCM Electronics sells exact replacements inexpensively.


Audio and Video, Computer Parts, Batteries, Cable and Wiring at MCM Electronics



-drh

[Bill M]

achase4u, If you are doing some production winding then scrap the Schatten. Trust me it is not up to the task. You need a better winder. I found that out. To me the Schatten is more of a hobby winder. I'll definately post more when I receive my Rea winder. Like I said before I upgraded from the schatten because you cannot count on it for production work. If you decide to buy the Rea winder ask for R J. He's a good guy.

[chevalij]

Agree completely. Although I've never had a Schatten, I was kind of scared off by the pics of the machine itself. Little tiny pancake motor... nope. I've built two with sewing machine motors that work great and are still going strong after about 4 years. I'm moving to a more industrial motor with the next winder, but the sewing machine motor is good and cheap. Check out ebay.. they usually come with a foot speed control for about $25

[achase4u]

ugh, christ. a 400 dollar hobby winder. lame.

Let me know about that REA winder please.

I gotta figure something else out pretty quick.

[David Schwab]

Here's the motor

[walcen]

Can anyone tell me what the new schatten winder power supply is rated at?

Voltage and amps, and a good photo off the inside of the new winder would be good, only to see if a better motor can be retrofitted into it.

I ask this because if you can score an electric motor out of a trashed Epsom printer to replace it with, it'll last for ever, those motors will operate on 12 to 35 volts DC at less than 1/2 an amp, they are really quiet and have more than enough torque for the job. But I don't know if they'll fit.
Let me know if you want pics and dimensions of these motors.

regards

Wal

[Bill M]

Can anyone tell me what the new schatten winder power supply is rated at?

Voltage and amps, and a good photo off the inside of the new winder would be good, only to see if a better motor can be retrofitted into it.

I ask this because if you can score an electric motor out of a trashed Epsom printer to replace it with, it'll last for ever, those motors will operate on 12 to 35 volts DC at less than 1/2 an amp, they are really quiet and have more than enough torque for the job. But I don't know if they'll fit.
Let me know if you want pics and dimensions of these motors.

regards

Wal

I doen't think it is as easy as finding a better motor. I believe more of the problem lies in the speed controler itself. I think a beefier controler needs to be installed first.

[David Schwab]

Can anyone tell me what the new schatten winder power supply is rated at?

The wall wart output is rated 9VDC 500mA.

My winder is the older metal enclosure model, but apparently they use the same motors, since they sent me a new one, and it was the same. Besides the motor, the power supply is also running the speed control and counter.

[David Schwab]

I doen't think it is as easy as finding a better motor. I believe more of the problem lies in the speed controler itself. I think a beefier controler needs to be installed first.

The speed controller seems to be burning the motors out, or, the motors are still good and the speed controller is burned out.

The speed controller is a hand made circuit on strip board.

Here were some photos I took of the inside of mine a while back.

It would be fairly simple to rig up a new motor in there.

What you are paying for in these machines is a lot of hand work involved in making them.

[Stevenson]

Same experience here too. I have the older winder with the mechanical counter and I found the cheap belts they use would crack and break after a while. Pain in the ass to change.

Recently, I bought this

Auto Motor Coil Transformer Winding Machine Winder 110V - eBay (item 270430085516 end time Jul-30-09 02:13:29 PDT)

I changed the noisy sewing machine motor. Had an old Ryobi thickness sander which was basically useless so I took the feed motor and speed control and mounted it to the machine. It's very quiet and can wind quite fast if you want it to. I also switched over the pulley and power switch to the left side so I can wind on the right (just my preference).

[Bill M]

Yours has the same motor as mine does with the exception that my pulleys are on the outside of the machine. Mine also has the plastic enclosure. I was going to redesign the drive for the motor, but instead built a more heavy duty machine. Part of the dedesigh was to use a 18vdc 1 amp power supply. That 9vdc 500 ma power supply is part of the problem.

[Stevenson]

Yours has the same motor as mine does with the exception that my pulleys are on the outside of the machine. Mine also has the plastic enclosure. I was going to redesign the drive for the motor, but instead built a more heavy duty machine. Part of the dedesigh was to use a 18vdc 1 amp power supply. That 9vdc 500 ma power supply is part of the problem.

The power supply is definitely not up to the task. I switched over to a 1 amp bench power supply and it was good for a while but it started to behave eratically again after a while. I think David is right about the speed controller burning out the motors. Overall I'd say that they should use a better motor and speed controller considering the price.

[David Schwab]

Les Schatten told me the problem was the built in circuits in the motors. I'm not sure what that circuit is, but you can see the circuit board in the photo where I took off the back cover.

Maybe that the motor is not meant to be run variable speed?

[David King]

The motor is either brushed or brush-less DC. Aren't those the only types of DC motor? Either way it should run just fine on an electronic speed control of the pulse width modulator variety. The PWM would heat right up and probably shut down if it couldn't handle the current of an over-taxed motor.

Assuming it's a brushless motor then there circuit board on the back is what times the pulses to the armature and keeps it going in one direction. There's a description of how a brushless DC motor works on wikipedia.

[David Schwab]

OK that makes sense. I'm not up on my motor technology.

Well, something is going on here. Either the motors go bad, or the speed control. I haven't tried bypassing the speed control to see.

The first motor lasted me three years, the second one about 6 months.

[Joe Gwinn]

OK that makes sense. I'm not up on my motor technology.

Well, something is going on here. Either the motors go bad, or the speed control. I haven't tried bypassing the speed control to see.

The first motor lasted me three years, the second one about 6 months.

I'm thinking that the motor and speed controller both are too small for the job, and the overload blows them out, it being random which gives out first. Nor is there any way for the controller to blow the motor unless the motor is itself too small for the task at hand.

I don't recall exactly when, but some years ago I posted an analysis of the minimum power required, based on the mechanical power required by winding at 1200 rpm using 30 grams tension - it isn't a trivial amount, and I can easily see a pipsqueak motor slowly cooking (or becoming demagnetized).

If you still have the dead motor, open it and smell it - does it have the acrid scent of magic smoke? Are the permanent magnet poles still as magnetic as they once were? Of course, if the controller blew first, then the motor may have no symptoms.

But your comment that the motor later failed while on the DC power supply implies that the motor is simply too small. The wall wart that comes with the winder is 9 volts 500 milliamps, which is 4.5 watts. The motor rating is likely somewhat less.

For the record, I ended up using a 15-watt US-made motor, which cost $35 new.

[David Schwab]

OK, I got the old motor, and since the back was already off, I gave it a sniff. No magic smoke odor. So just for the heck of it, I soldered a couple of wires to it and poked it into the plug on the wall wart, and it started spinning.

It seemed nice and fast and had a good amount of torque.

So it seems the problem is the home made speed controller.

[cryptozoo]

I would certainly be livid if I paid that much for a winder and it burned out in a year. Especially one that's specifically designed (and marketed / priced) to pickup makers. Will Stew Mac honor some type of warranty if you got it through them?

[David Schwab]

I would certainly be livid if I paid that much for a winder and it burned out in a year. Especially one that's specifically designed (and marketed / priced) to pickup makers. Will Stew Mac honor some type of warranty if you got it through them?

You know the first thing I did was look to see if there is any warranty listed, and there isn't. I didn't see one at the Schatten site either.

So I went to the Schatten website, and looked for some kind of support email link, which they do have. I sent an email to: technical@schattendesign.com

I got a reply back asking to verify the email to make sure it wasn't spam. Then the next day I got an email from Les Schatten.

He thought it was the motor, and more precisely the circuitry in the motor.

Now I bought my unit back in April '06, so I wasn't expecting much. He wanted me to send the whole unit back for them to look at, but instead I ended up buying a new motor from them, which was pretty cheap, and got it about a week later.

This was in early February, and the motor once again stopped working a couple of months later.... except now I see the first motor still works, and I'd bet the replacement does too.

So I'd say drop them an email, because they were quite reasonable about the whole thing.

I don't know if they changed their speed controller circuit, but they need to.

[walcen]

For all budding winder builders.

I hope this helps as I'm currently undertaking the task of designing a simple, easy to build and affordable pickup winder.

When the design and construction is completed I'll be posting all the detail but for now here's what I have so far.

here is the motor speed controller, it is easy to build in its kit form and it works well between 6- 32 volts, read the specs.
Bi-Directional DC Motor Speed Controller Kit
Also available in Aus.

Standard (High Power) D.C. Motors 11800 RPM - Jaycar Electronics

These motors will run Quite happily between 6-18 volts at 1/2 an amp with most wall power packs and spin at around 8000 rpm, I'm sure these would also be available in the states.
Or as I said, if you scrounge the motors out of Epson or Canon printers they work just as well but only spin around 3000 rpm, more than fast enough and real quiet
kind regards to all

Wal

[mkat]

This will not help and is off topic. Just shocked at the price and lack of quality of he crappy Schatten winder. It resembles the quality of a cheap motorised speed boat I had as a kid.

A friend of mine and I, made a winder out of scrap parts (eg. sewing machine motor, formica base, MDF plate, reed switch off an excercise bike I think, foot speed controller, lighting and so on). The machine is solid, fast and accurate. The cost was $30 for the digital counter kit.

I do know for some, outlaying the cost of the Schatten winder was something they were willing to wear to get moving.

[David Schwab]

I'm not defending the cost of the thing, but if you made one for someone, how much would you charge in labor? That's what you are paying for there.

Labor-wise it's about what you would pay for a refret, plus the parts.

It's neatly made, and except for the speed control issue, has worked well for three years.

But I've always said they are over priced because they are not massed produced.

If I was going to do it again, I'd get a cheap hobby lathe, and make a winder from that. But at the time it was more convenient, since I had no access to a workshop.

This machine was intended for repair shops that do occasional pickup rewinds, and then it's put back on the shelf when not in use.

As soon as I fix the speed control issue, it will keep on working.

I emailed them again and got a quick reply from Les asking for me to call him. I can't fault them on customer service.

[walcen]

[QUOTE=mkat;114189]This will not help and is off topic.

Please except my deepest apologies for being off topic and of no help to you, but perhaps some one else may find it useful.

kindest regards to all, and cheers Dave

Wal

[mkat]

Please except my deepest apologies for being off topic and of no help to you, but perhaps some one else may find it useful.

kindest regards to all, and cheers Dave

Wal

Wal,

Sorry 'bout that, I didn't refer to your post at all (which indeed was helpful). I meant that my post was off topic and not helpful.

[walcen]

Wal,

Sorry 'bout that, I didn't refer to your post at all (which indeed was helpful). I meant that my post was off topic and not helpful.

Hey don't sweat it mate, no harm done, no offense taken.

regards to all

Wal