Schatten winder 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

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