How are you powering your homemade winder?

[shawnl]

Hello again,

I've decided to abandon any attempts to finess my homemade hand crank winder in favor of building a more refined motor powered winder. Not to sound lazy but hand cranking thousand of winds hours on end is not as glamourous as it first seemed. Secondly, having to focus only one task would help me improve my tensioning and traversing which seems to me is what hand winding is all about. Therefore, I am building a more suitable winder using parts from a battery powered black and decker drill.

I'm assuming that the motor from the drill is DC given that it's battery powered. My plan is to use a belt drive to connect the motor with a driveshaft that drives a main flywheel. A potentiometer or dimmer switch will control motor speed. Essentially, I'm using the drill's same electrical circuitry but replacing the trigger with a potentiometer and adding an on/off switch. That setup of course means that it would run off of battery power which is ok but not ideal. I would prefer a plug in power source. I have seen some DIY videos of people who convert such devices to use AC wall wart adapters, which seems easy enough. This method involves removing the battery pack and soldering the charging plug leads directly to the motor. The adapter normally used for charging sends current to motor instead of the battery. However, is this technically safe to do without getting shocked, electrocuted or forcing the motor to perform in a way it wasn't intended?

I know some people use old appliance motors or salvage parts from sewing machines but some of those motors seem excessively large or overpowered. I'd really like to build something small and compact. I'd just like to see what some of you guys are using and what sort of success you've had with your setups.

[Steve Conner]

A cordless drill motor can require quite a hefty current to get it started. The charger may not be able to provide that. Maybe leaving the battery in place (and permanently charging) would help.

Some chargers are not isolated from the AC line and could shock you. I believe these ones carry a warning on the underside to the effect that the battery contacts are dangerous to touch when the charger is plugged into the wall.

The speed controller in the cordless drill uses pulse width modulation to get high torque at low speeds. Replacing the whole speed controller module with a rheostat will give poor speed control. And replacing it with a dimmer switch won't work at all, since dimmer switches are designed for AC. I would suggest identifying the slide pot that senses trigger position in the speed controller module, and replacing it with a rotary one.

Last but not least, every cordless drill motor I ever saw had a pinion press-fitted permanently to the shaft. Replacing that with a belt pulley could be tricky.

[shawnl]

I guess there's more to that drill trigger mechanism than I thought. I can confirm that the motor I planned on using does in fact have a pinion that doesn't want to come off. Let's say I still tried to make this work, I thought perhaps instead of using an AC wall wart I could use one of those transformers from a electric model train. It would solve both the power supply and speed control problems. However, I didn't even consider that this motor was designed for torque not speed.

There is another alternative. I could pirate a small hair dryer that had a usable motor. That way I could use the whole power cord and motor assembly knowing they were safely designed for each other. I would still have to find a way to ad speed control but if I didn't have to worry about that pulse width modulation thing, would I then be able use a basic potentiometer?

[David Schwab]

Just use the drill. Why take it apart? If you are going to take it apart, just find a sewing machine motor. That will work just as well.

I'm currently using my old Schatten winder while I build my CNC winder. The motor speed control died years ago, so I have been powering it with a DeWalt hand drill. It's not cordless, just a regular drill. I have it chucked to the left axle.

Originally this was an emergency backup until I got the wider fixed, but it works so well I just left it there. I can wind much faster than with the original motor.

[shawnl]

Yes that would probably be the easiest of all. Although call me crazy there is just something about designing and building the entire thing from the ground up with a really nice enclosure. Also I was really hoping to make this as compact as possible. I guess its more about mixing and matching parts to fit the space.

[David Schwab]

Yes that would probably be the easiest of all. Although call me crazy there is just something about designing and building the entire thing from the ground up with a really nice enclosure. Also I was really hoping to make this as compact as possible. I guess its more about mixing and matching parts to fit the space.

Well I agree there. But get yourself a motor and don't bother pulling a drill apart. My hand drill was supposed to be a stop gad measure, but I liked it so much I left it, and don't want to out any more work into the Schatten.

[David King]

Many of the VS battery drills aren't truly variable speed. The trigger is likely to have a series of pads instead of a linear pot. Not that it matters to winding.
You won't be using much of the drill's torque so you won't need much power supply to get it started or keep it running at speed. Any surplus 12V-2A laptop charger should give you a decent, regulated DC supply for a few dollars (check Good Will).

[axedaddy]

Any one checked out or used one of these tattoo coil winders for pickups?

http://www.amazon.com/ELECTRIC-Tatto.../dp/B004YD77SM

or these manual ones?

http://www.amazon.com/Custom-Tattoo-.../dp/B004YD77IW

[Steve Conner]

This winder is for winding Tesla coil secondaries, not pickups

http://drsstc.com/~sisg/files/SISG-c...ttleWinder.pdf

but the general construction and DC motor speed control circuit may be of interest.