Working on a new winder. . .

[kayakerca]

BSD Unix (Berkeley Software Distribution). It shared the initial codebase and design with the original AT&T UNIX.

A descendant of BSD was FreeBSD and NetBSD. In 1985 Steve Jobs who had been fired from Apple, started NeXT, Inc, and in 1988 released the NeXTSTEP operating system, which had code derived from BSD and used the MACH kernel.

NeXT computers helped create the internet, when the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, was written for NeXTSTEP by Tim Berners-Lee. The US Postal Services website used to run WebObjects on PC based OPENSTEP servers. These days Apple's website and iTunes store runs on WebObjects software. And the games Doom and Quake were written on NeXT computers.

In 1997 Apple purchased NeXT for $429 million in cash, and along with the company's software they got Steve Jobs back. Apple used OPENSTEP as the basis for Mac OS X.

So today's Macs (as well as the iPhone and iPad) run a Unix operating system directly derived from AT&T (Bell Labs) Unix! I like to say it's what Linux wants to be when it grows up, or it's Linux with a better GUI and commercial software like Adobe Photoshop and MS Office. lol

So my takeaway from all this Unix/Linux/BSD/OPENSTEP/FreeBSD/NetBSD stuff is that I'm just not quite Xtra/Nerd/Enough to leave behind my poor little Windows farm below?



I hang out at the farm from time to time and on special occasions, but I spend most of my time in the Windows condo below.



Even with decades of techie geniuses trying as hard as they could to help wannabes like me learn a little about computers, my coding up the winder app in VB.NET for Windows was the dictionary definition of the Peter Principle.

I think I'm too old to move to the Apple orchard where all the real cool kids hand out. I'll just have to leave the really cool winding app development for them.

[David Schwab]

I don't have all of these anymore... My vintage Mac collection...



Except for one of the very old all in one units and this:



I just have my 24" iMac now. I have no need for a laptop. I use my iPhone for that! lol

[David King]

I finally gave my powerbook1500 from 1992 away this spring. I'm holding on to the G4-400 for now but the 27" Imac have been source of radiant heat in my office. I can feel the screen on my face. I've had the same car, a 1984 vw since 1992 so I like to get 10 years minimum out of a 'putor.

[kayakerca]

I don't have all of these anymore... My vintage Mac collection...



Except for one of the very old all in one units and this:



I just have my 24" iMac now. I have no need for a laptop. I use my iPhone for that! lol

It's funny how events in life can create profound changes in the path we travel. I started off with a TRS80 with a cassette tape recorder. Sold it so I could get me one of those newfangled Apple II's that everybody was raving about at the time. Loved it! Would probably have been an Apple guy to this day had it not been for a local junkie that did B&E's to get valuables to trade with the local Hell's Angels (Satan's Choice before they patched over) chapter for drugs. The thief stole my Apple II, with it's 2 floppy drives, the printer, the printer stand, the printer paper and every floppy disk in the house. I flipped a coin and ran out with the insurance proceeds and bought and 8088 based box, and the rest of the computer road is history.

[David Schwab]

It's funny how events in life can create profound changes in the path we travel. I started off with a TRS80 with a cassette tape recorder.

My very first computer, which I still own, was a Timex Sinclair 1000 (Sinclair ZX81)! Probably 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000



My next computer was an AST Pentium running Windows 3.1. I had that for 28 days, and then returned it and got an Apple Performa 6115, which was the Powermac 6100 with a 15" monitor.

That was in 1994. I've been using Macs ever since, which made sense, since at my job it was all Macs, except for an IBM PS2 running AIX (IBM's Unix) which was the workstation I operated (Scitex Full Auto Frames trapping software).

Not counting the old ones, I'm on Mac #5. I still have my second one, which was a PowerComputing Mac clone.

[kayakerca]

My very first computer, which I still own, was a Timex Sinclair 1000 (Sinclair ZX81)! Probably 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000



My next computer was an AST Pentium running Windows 3.1. I had that for 28 days, and then returned it and got an Apple Performa 6115, which was the Powermac 6100 with a 15" monitor.

That was in 1994. I've been using Macs ever since, which made sense, since at my job it was all Macs, except for an IBM PS2 running AIX (IBM's Unix) which was the workstation I operated (Scitex Full Auto Frames trapping software).

Not counting the old ones, I'm on Mac #5. I still have my second one, which was a PowerComputing Mac clone.

Here's my first as it looked. I bought it used in 1980 for $500!



Wrote a tax program for it in basic that optimized the salary/dividend mix for a given remuneration level for a privately owned business. The tax partner hated that because I could do in seconds what took him an hour to do by hand. Also wrote a program to select statistically valid audit samples from a companies documents sequences. That darn job related stuff.

Android Nim was the only game that I had for it. Was a lot of fun, but after wasting probably a year of my life playing Wizardry on my Apple II when I got it, I've never played another computer game to this day.

I'm moving back to the Apple orchard a bit as I have it on good authority that Santa is bringing me an Apple iPad Mini on the 25th!

[larams]

I know this is an older thread but I want to say thanks for sharing your build. I used a lot of your information to guide my own winder build. In particular your use of a linear actuator for the traverse was a great idea and I am using one as well.
My main problem right now is writing the software to control the actuator with an arduino. I've got it working partially but finding I'm not as smart as I thought lol. I'm trying to come up with a way to zero out the starting point of the traverse and then moving a given distance based on that starting point but it's not that easy to understand the code for me.

I ended up going with the easydriver from sparkfun. Which is cheap and works really well so far. The only issue is you have to cool the easydriver chip because it over heats with anything over about 500ma.

I'll probably start another thread when I get further along with my build so that maybe others can find some use as I did with your build. Thanks again.

[kayakerca]

I know this is an older thread but I want to say thanks for sharing your build. I used a lot of your information to guide my own winder build. In particular your use of a linear actuator for the traverse was a great idea and I am using one as well.
My main problem right now is writing the software to control the actuator with an arduino. I've got it working partially but finding I'm not as smart as I thought lol. I'm trying to come up with a way to zero out the starting point of the traverse and then moving a given distance based on that starting point but it's not that easy to understand the code for me.

I ended up going with the easydriver from sparkfun. Which is cheap and works really well so far. The only issue is you have to cool the easydriver chip because it over heats with anything over about 500ma.

I'll probably start another thread when I get further along with my build so that maybe others can find some use as I did with your build. Thanks again.

I wasn't smart enough to go down the arduino road, so I went with the Phidgets controllers. Very easy to use and code, but very expensive.

[kayakerca]

Well, a number of months and a 100 or so winds later, I have a few observations about my rudimentary homemade CNC winder.

3. The computer operating the CNC winder has got to stay focused. If it decides it wants to search and load updates for Windows (I know Terry. . . Windoz ;-) or antivirus software or whatever, it can forget what it is supposed to be doing for a bit (which has happened about 3 times). If it lets things between the app the the CNC controllers get interrupted for just a millisecond, the winder can go off and do it's own thing, which isn't pretty and ends up sending a lot of wire in the garbage bucket. Seems the solution for me was. . . turn off the WiFi, remove all anitivus software and anything else you don't need. I use a little LG mini notebook (see below) that was used by my daughter when she was doing volunteer work in Africa a few years back. It works fine, so long as it stays focused on the task at hand!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26086[/ATTACH]

Thought I'd provide a final update on the CNC winder project and the resolution of the problem above.

So, I've been using my CNC winder since March 2013. I started having the above problem with the traverser "going off the rails" about 1 in 5 pickup winds which really sucked. Thought it was a Windows 7 issue or a speed issue of some kind with the computer running the app. I was totally wrong! The problem related to how often the controller for the traverser returned information to the app relating to the position of the traverse distance from the latest direction change. The controller only reported back to the app every 8ms. I know 8 ms may not seem like much, but it is huge when the app is constantly checking to see if it is time to change direction. The problem occurred when the traverse reached the end and needed to change direction. If the app checked 2 times before an 8ms update, it got the same distance location back and changed directions a second time in the period of a couple of ms. Basically, it meant the traverse effectively did not change direction and started traversing off one end or the other of the bobbin. Bad scene.

Took a couple years and a lot of sleepless nights thinking about it, to get smart enough to ask the controller manufacturer how often the stepper motor location is reported back to the app. I changed a few lines of code so the problem could no longer occur. Probably a year ago now and a few hundred pickups later and it has not trashed a wind, not even once!

This kinda crap keeps me awake at night, with the problem and possible fixes rolling through my head instead of sleeping until the magic "aha" moment! I wanted to run it for a year before I was willing to call it a win. All I can say now is that it is fixed, I'm calling it a win and I am pretty much dancing in the streets about it!