Here is a few pics of my Arduino winder.

[larams]

The Uno is to slow to run two motors at fast rpm's and then it needs to count and probably run a display of some kind as well. The Arduino Due or the Chipkit are fast enough to run two motors or more. The accelstepper library works great on both. One of the problems though is trying to write the software in a way that doesn't interfere with the step pulses being sent to the stepper drivers. For instance if you try and write to a display you will cause a small delay that will cause a missed step and then you have motor stalling. That is why I ended up using two Arduino Due's. One Due runs the motors and sends a pulse every 200 steps. The other Due listens for that pulse and then does calculations for counting and rpm's. It also does all of the display writing.

[rdrr]

I think the uno is to slow as well. Thats why I think the easiest thing for an arduino implementation is to use a stepper for the traverse and a DC motor with an optical encoder to count the turns hooked up to an interrupt.

Chris,

I havn't completely decided on the interface. I have a couple of phidgets as well a few arduinos. What I really want to do as far as software goes is first create an application that will allow me to describe what the coil looks like, bobbin dimensions , wire gauge. layer descriptions (whether they are based on winding percentages or custom layers based on each turn of the bobbin) , ect .. Basically a coil definition format. Then use that definition to drive whatever sort of implementation I decide I want to come up with. Couple that with some simple interface for starting,stopping , reading values such as rpm, turn count ect... I can use a single application for multiple winder implementations. Yeah, its an over engineered design but thats just the software engineer in me. At the same time though then anyone that wanted to create a winder application could use it as a base and just add an implementation for their winder that interpreted the coil definition and the interface for starting ,stopping ....

Rob