Coil winder Ideas and traverse devices

[David Schwab]

When I heard it was plastic thats when I decided not to follow my better judgment and tinker. Being a woodworker why use a metal housing when weight is an asset, So I will base my design on MDF. The other item to consider is should I build a two sided device? Do you use both sides or is it useless since you can always reverse the bobbin or reverse wire a coil wound in the same direction. I have a bit to learn on mounting but that I should be able to find info somewhere in this forum or online.

In my case at the time I had no access to anything that resembled a work shop. I live in an apartment (in a house), with a wife, two kids and a cat. If I were alone I'd surely have a work bench somewhere... as it is I wind pickups on the kitchen table!

So for me the Shatten was the solution to winding with no place to wind, plus no place to make a winder. I do like that I can store it in its box when not needed, and it's potable and ready to go.

I think it was over priced, but as someone who makes things myself, I under stand it's the work of probably one man. It needed some small adjustments, such as squaring up the wire guide to the "winding tower" as they call it.

The particle board and melamine base is somewhat crudely made. The inkjet clear decal is also crude and the logo is bitmapped. The counter could be bigger, and the motor is just on the verge of being under powered. It's fairly easy to slow it down without breaking the wire!

But it works well for those that need a winder out of the box.

I never use the left side of the winder. I wind all my coils in the same direction. I did do one pickup with the coils reversed, but it's easy enough to turn the bobbin over in most cases.

[Woodenspoke]

RG I have a family, am in the middle of selling a house in a bad market, so I'm always in a mood these days really didn't mean to do that it just comes out. You only have so much time to think about what you said before you press that submit button.

Your last post included a tidbit if information that was helpful. These little morsels of information that slips out that makes your day.

After due consideration I have decided to leave the traverse motion part for another day. If I figure out the secret of a great pickups I will then get some help turning my small Mill into a CNC winder (programing help) since its a small additional mod to all the money I have put into it already.

David: I know your pain but I cant live without my shop. I don't live only for guitars so my tools are put to good use on other projects. Never a dull moment when you have clueless neighbors LOL.

John H. Its just as easy for me to use the lathe as any other tool. The chuck is very expensive an allows very high precision turning. I also have a large sheet of PVC which may be my best choice for the platen. But you do have a nice winder.

I guess we are onto building a winder now David said he only uses one side John says he uses both? Also David says the motor will stop on the Schatten at high tension. and John seems to have devised a drive based on friction rather than a belt which may also help to not break wire.

Winder Opinions
Two sided yes or no?
Make a solid winder drive which can break wire, or one that will slip under too much wire tension?

[Berman]

Hi Woodenspoke
Just my opinion
You need a two-sided winder only when the motor can't change the direction (as the often used sewingmachine-motors).
The power of the Motor is not so important. The Schatten-Winder has a real lowpowered powersupply (0.5A at 9 Volt).
I think with a stronger powersupply (1A, 9Volt) it will work better.

Just my 2 cents
Hermann

[Woodenspoke]

Already have a motor and variable speed control box but it will break wire. AC powered controler but looks like some weird stepper motor. Its ebay so no indicationss of reversability and only three wires, also shows direction arrow but that does not mean it will only turn one way just the correct way. Thanks for the info

[David Schwab]

You need a two-sided winder only when the motor can't change the direction (as the often used sewingmachine-motors).

You can mount the bobbin upside down... but really there's little reason to wind coils in reverse. Just wire them up backwards like with a humbucker.

[R.G.]

I have a family, am in the middle of selling a house in a bad market, so I'm always in a mood these days really didn't mean to do that it just comes out. You only have so much time to think about what you said before you press that submit button.

Your last post included a tidbit if information that was helpful. These little morsels of information that slips out that makes your day.

No foul. I have bad days too. I think I was having one when I read your reply, judging from what I wrote. No problem.

After due consideration I have decided to leave the traverse motion part for another day. If I figure out the secret of a great pickups I will then get some help turning my small Mill into a CNC winder (programing help) since its a small additional mod to all the money I have put into it already.

I think you might want to have a look at these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95012
http://grizzly.com/products/G9247

They're great places to start in a coil winder build, as they are small(ish) and have the hard parts where precision is needed already done for you. Each is a complete manual winder if you will guide your wire on your own. Each only needs the addition of a traverse and tensioner to be a "dumb" mechanical winder, and the addition of some electronics smarts on the spindle motor and the traverse to be a CNC winder.

I like to find places where the - for me - hard parts of high mechanical accuracy has already been done, and what's needed is the guidance and control.

Two sided yes or no?
Make a solid winder drive which can break wire, or one that will slip under too much wire tension?

While it's possible to design a winder that would slip rather than break #43 copper wire, it's a challenge to make it do that reliably. The break tension on the wire is pretty low.

I took the other approach of designing a tensioner that would keep the wire tension limited to no more than X so that if the bobbin wanted wire, it got wire. I posted the sketches at GEO as well. Originally I wanted to use an electrically servo'ed tensioner, but a slip clutch works as well. What I came up with was three rubber-tired wheels; each in contact and the wire routed over/under/over them. A friction brake on one wheel with a spring-calibrated force on it supplies the slip tension limit, the other two wheels guide and press the wire against the friction wheel. Rubber rollers from an old printer work, as do tires from RC hobby autos and quad (4-wheel) roller skates.

[DrStrangelove]

Consider this wood lathe, too:
http://grizzly.com/products/VS-Wood-Lathe/G8690

This one has an inexpensive 4" face plate suitable for mounting pickups,
while the smaller G9247's is only 2" diameter.

-drh

[Woodenspoke]

I know you all love to convert things but in this case you will pay more to convert these machines into a CNC winder than building one yourself. The only complicated part is putting the traverse mechanism onto a rail or slot which keeps it from flopping in circles. Even two L shaped aluminum guides will work. You can modify some of the replacement parts from the Mini mill, lathe Line of tools which you can find at Littlemachineshop.com and turn them into parts for a winder.

Here is a simplified picture of an easy to build CNC winder. If you take away the cost of converting something like a mini lathe vs two servo motors costing $25+ each or less. You begin to see that a tool conversion makes no economical sense.


In fact if you read back to my eureka moment in this post I realized the Motor control conversion will cost you more money, time and effort getting a computer to drive it at the correct speed and count winds properly would be almost pointless. I am luckily enough to have a mill and spare servo motor to make the bobbin portion of a winder and use the mills Y axis already outfitted with précising ball screws for the traverse motion. My problem is programing. A Servo motor is made to do everything you would need at a low cost and functions with precision far beyond winding needs. I have gone through conversion of these devices to CNC. Its expensive. A pre CNCed mini mill is $2,500 and that does not include the computer and software add another $2000. Also you have to have a standard Parallel port which is not a standard item these days on new motherboards. USB will be the next of controller cards but I don't believe that has happened yet.

For metal turning or wood they are great, converting these to a winder even non CNC unless you use the basic tool for what it was designed for is a waste of money.

I have all my parts now and will whip up my winder in the next week or so.

RG I will look for your tension device sounds like a better plan

[Alabam]

Simple traverse idea?

I got lost in all the heart shaped cams solutions, etc, and came up with this traverse setup.
It took me a while to figure out how to mount the wheel that the wire passes through without the wire snagging on the wheel mountings.
This wheel has to be flanged on both sides, to hold it in, with holes drilled into the face, to match the height of the coil.
Shoot it down lads before i waste time building it.

[R.G.]

Shoot it down lads before i waste time building it.

OK. The side to side component of the wire motion is inconsistent. It has a sine wave velocity. As such, it dwells a long time at the outer ends of the traverse and runs across the middle of the bobbin much faster. So wire will pile up on the ends of the bobbing and there'll be a valley in the middle.

Of course, that may sound good, since the wire will pile and slide down the two half-hills at the ends of the traverse, and the resulting non-uniform winding may be random(ish), so it might be as good as some hand wound ones. But there is no reason to think it's a particularly good traverse. You'll have to manually pile up wire in the middle to fill it up to get a full bobbin.

[Alabam]

Simple traverse idea

Thanks R.G, yes i can see your reasoning, that poses a problem.
Strangely enough, i replied a few days ago to a post in the Pickup Makers Forum regarding- "Winding a thin pickup".
In the reply i didn`t mention that i had no need to use a traverse device, the core depth was only 3/16th" and it wound perfectly, this is the pic i posted there.
Cheers.