Sewing Machine Coil Winder?

[Alabam]

From your pic i can see a collar on the Motor, there appears to be some room on it to run a belt to a same sized collar on the Mech` counter.
Or you can use your existing belt and mount the counter on top of the motor.

As you can see from the pic of my Sowing Machine winder, there is a bolt affixed to the main pulley, passing through the bobbin and coasters.
The mech` counter i used had a small collar at the end of its shaft which attached to the bolt, i didn`t use a belt.
I don`t have any pics of this as i trashed the sowing machine winder and moved on to a new design i thought up, you can see this in my sketch below.
I only made a few of these coils and had trouble finding more plastic strips and the covers for the coils, anyway, i discovered later that spool-less coils were being made in Taiwan which negated my design, so it was back to basics with the Schatten clone.

Cheers
Sam.

[RedHouse]

Here's my latest, another sewing machine spinner...



At the bottom of this page http://users.isp.com/brad_anne/winder.htm are a couple pics of the first coil wound with it, it took a few tries as I had to adjust things at first.

I built this one with an old Singer sewing machine motor I gutted out of a free machine, it was an old one from the 70's and wouldn't you know just when I got it finished and was ready to wind a pickup ...it gave up the ghost so I bought one of those generic replacement motors (made in chyna).

I used an optical sensor and light wheel similar to the Shatten setup, I used some decent bearings for a 3/8" shaft, and I wired-in a CUB4 counter module I got off eBay cheap cause the battery was going dead. These all run off a 12vDC 500mA supply built inside the winder.

I am going to build another one and give this one to my oldest friend, he has some medical issues and cannot work anymore. He loves music, sings and plays guitar, and I think he would like to wind pickups as he will get wheelchair-bound eventually.

[spud1950]

Very nice little winder,RedHouse. Thanks for your excellent page documenting the build!

[David Schwab]

Very nice work.

[RedHouse]

Too kind.

My next one will be made mostly of aluminum and have a tailstock part so I can wind other types of bobbins (like Rick etc.)

[SkinnyWire]

Nice work. I built mine with a similar optical sensor. Can't figure out why more people don't use them.

Do you find you have trouble keeping a relatively constant speed with the light dimmer control?

[RedHouse]

Nice work. I built mine with a similar optical sensor. Can't figure out why more people don't use them.

Do you find you have trouble keeping a relatively constant speed with the light dimmer control?

It holds quite steady, once I find my tension and adj the speed.

[darrell07]

Hi folks First post here,
Hay RedHouse thanks for the pics it realy helped me alot in building my own winder.Now if I can figure out how to wire a counter, the calculator counter is pretty easy but it wont count very fast.
I like your friend have some medical issues and cannot work either.

Im amazed at how much R&D these guys put into there work right down to the coil winders , Just amazing..

[SkinnyWire]

It holds quite steady, once I find my tension and adj the speed.

I started with a dimmer, but it wouldn't hold a steady speed very long. They're generally not too good for this kind of load. Swapped it with a 2A variac and no problem ever since.

[RedHouse]

I started with a dimmer, but it wouldn't hold a steady speed very long. They're generally not too good for this kind of load. Swapped it with a 2A variac and no problem ever since.

Likely the particular dimmer you used was the cause, this one is steady, no variation on it's own when the motor is running.

[Magnut]

I made a simple winder using a sewing machine motor. New motor was about 30 bucks. I attached it to a rear hub from a mountain bike. I use a potientiometer to control the speed. Currently have a simple microswitch to do the counting. Total cost for the winder was under $50. It has been updated since this pic. It no longer has the wood block.

...and yes that is one fat coil, wanted to see how much I could get on and how it would sound... terrible!

[SonnyW]

Sewing Machine winder

Here's a sewing machine winder that works just fine.



I used a reed switch and a counter from fargo controls. The counter only cost around $30, and is much neater than the calculator mod. I used a magnet in the machine needle holder to work the counter. I soldered a brass wire to a cut off needle and attached a magnet to that. It counts great once it's adjusted with no bounce at high speeds. On my machine, the gear ratio for the needle is 1:1 so for each revolution of the handwheel the needle makes one cycle. I use double sided tape to mount the bobbins to the handwheel. Haven't had any come loose yet. If you want to see more pics of all the parts of this there are several in my public album.

[RedHouse]

Now THAT'S a sewing machine winder!

[SonnyW]

thanks yours seems to be a lot more professional though. I bet a lot of work went into that one. Nice too, what you plan to do with it. -sw

[RedHouse]

thanks yours seems to be a lot more professional though. I bet a lot of work went into that one. Nice too, what you plan to do with it. -sw

Thanks for your kind words, yeah I have difficulty thinking of my friend as wheelchair bound (isn't yet, but sometime in future) he's on a morphine patch system to keep the pain down.

It's funny (strange/final) how life hands one surprises as one get on in years.