Coil winding machine from printer idea

[Bonke]

Hello all!
I have been thinking about winding my own inductors. My first project will probably be an API 553ish eq. I know, I know, it will probably be cheaper for me to buy inductors from Ed Andersson, Don audio or similar but I like making stuff and I want to learn.
I have been searching the net for DIY winding machines and there are some very interesting models out there. An idea came to mind when browsing the net. Why not making it out of an old printer? It has two motors, one with the "encoder strip"(moving the ink cartridges) and one "regular". In my mind if it would be possible to control this motors freely from a PC it would make a great coil winder.

Now, I am totally crap at programming and I have no idea how to make the motors spin or move the way I want.
Does anybody here know how to make this work? Anybody tried this before? It would be ubernice if there was some sort of program letting us control the printers motors the way we want. Imagine the growth in DIY coil winding! 

I know this has been discussed once before in this forum but there was no solution in the thread.
Any ideas or info is greatly appreciated.
Henrik

 

[Spencerleehorton]

i like this idea as i have a few printers i could mutilate for this!!!!
havent got a clue in how to implement this though, i will try and find out some info.

 

[Bonke]

After some more research it seems to be harder than what I expected. I can not find anyone who has done this before. There are plenty of people who has built 3d printers from old printers but nothing about controlling it from a PC with a simple GUI.
I found out that printers use a language called PCL but very little info about actually communicating with them. Anyway as I said before I am crap at programming.
It seems like most people use an Arduino, pic or something and cnc software to control their 3d printers. Maybe that is the way to go?
In my mind I just thought that it probably was some way to control the motors freely and independent directly from the usb-port.  :-\. A winding machine is so much simpler than a 3d printer. It should just be a matter of getting the paper feeding motor to run and the cartridge motor to make a pattern according to feeding motors speed and wire gauge. This looks fine to me. Even with a GUI: http://www.theprojectasylum.com/electronicsprojects/automaticcoilwinder/automaticcoilwinder.html

I will get my hands on some printers and try to build some sort of jig and start by controlling it from an Arduino or a pic.
Will report if I make any progress.
Henrik

 

[dirtyhanfri]

I not sure if this is what you're looking for, but maybe it's worth a look:

http://www.theprojectasylum.com/electronicsprojects/automaticcoilwinder/automaticcoilwinder.html

It runs from parallel port on Windows Xp, but there's even a independent version running the software in a cheap micro.

I have the mechanics done and waiting for some spare time to finish the electronic side, looks like a nice machine for few bucks

 

[Bonke]

Yes that is the same that I linked to in the previous post.
My initial idea was to use the already existing USB-port, language etc from a printer but it seems harder than I thought.
I will probably end up building something like the machine in the link.
Henrik

 

[dirtyhanfri]

:-[

Sorry, I reader the first post and the scrolled down without reading too deep

 

[Whoops]

A
It seems like most people use an Arduino, pic or something and cnc software to control their 3d printers. Maybe that is the way to go?

Yes, thats really the way to go. Arduino control!

It's a great idea and I will also do something similar in the Future,
its great that with one printer you can already have the motor and rails for the travese gear and also the main motor.

I was checking in a local website for second hand stuff and there were countless of printers for sale at 5euros.
Some of them for parts, others used and even some new in the box that people never used and want to get rid off (thanks to the tremendous ink prices). Theres even people giving away printers for free.

I guess it would be nice to do a standard project to build a nice coil winder from printer parts.
Like anyone would get there own parts, but implementation had already guided documents and info and some arduino software was already developed.

Guess I should try to learn Arduino.
LOLOLOL

 

[Bonke]

Arduino seems like the way to go, BUT ;D, it would really be great to have a way to control everything from a PC as well. That way  you could get a winding machine rolling almost without any additional parts. I will see if I can get in contact with someone who is really good at programming and ask him/her if it is even possible.
Henrik

 

[gyraf]

Arduino is also nice as a simple PC>world interface

 

[Henke]

LabView for arduino  (LINX) could be useful for this kind of project for easy to use GUI implementation. I have a similar half finished project somewhere in my drawers, using the stepper motor and traverse screw from a floppy drive and a printer paper feed stepper to spin the bobbin. An arduino and a couple of H-bridge drivers and you're good to go. Got it all moving at least last a year ago but haven't found the time to weld it all together into a working unit, so i'm still hand winding over here... :

 

[Whoops]

LabView for arduino  (LINX) could be useful for this kind of project for easy to use GUI implementation. I have a similar half finished project somewhere in my drawers, using the stepper motor and traverse screw from a floppy drive and a printer paper feed stepper to spin the bobbin. An arduino and a couple of H-bridge drivers and you're good to go. Got it all moving at least last a year ago but haven't found the time to weld it all together into a working unit, so i'm still hand winding over here... :

Nice,
so what would be a good cheap sources for recycled stepper motors?
3.5 inch floppy drives?
printers?
what other obsolete devices could be used as a source?

thanks

 

[Henke]

CD-player lens traverse is another alternative. But basing it upon a printer is clever since a lot of the precision mechanics are already sorted out

 

[Whoops]

CD-player lens traverse is another alternative. But basing it upon a printer is clever since a lot of the precision mechanics are already sorted out

All the printer motors are stepped?
and how many motors are inside a standard printer?

thanks

 

[Henke]

The paper feed motor is usually (??) a stepper, but the carriage motor could be either a stepper or a standard DC motor with a pulse-wheel. In my case the latter and i didn't wanna mess with that kind of control, hence my floppy drive butchery

 

[Gene Pink]

so what would be a good cheap sources for recycled stepper motors?

Large working pen plotters can be had for a song, and have big stepper motors that can move pretty fast.

These beasts can be primitive, with separate boards for the motor drivers, where you tell it a direction and send TTL pulses. This sounds ideal for hacking. Switch to local mode, and a joystick controls both X-Y and velocity for manual override. 

I happen to have one apart in the bedroom,  jpeg attached.  Motor is about 3-3/8" diameter, rated 2.5V/4.6A.

We once thought about using it to mill the copper off of circuit boards, for ugly one-offs.  But not in the bedroom, my wife is quite tolerant, but not that tolerant.

Gene

 

[CJ]

you can wind small coils with a big motor, so why not get a big DC motor?

this way you can wind anything with one machine,

don't worry about the traverse, just find a way to put a 1/2 inch chuck on the end of a motor shaft and you are half way there,

now get a used variac to control the ac to a bridge rectifier,

now find a way to unwind the wire while feeding it thru a tension device,

then you worry about the traverse.

get some whisker disks and you will have  a tension device for small wire, (#36 and smaller)

don't forget the wire and tape,

get wire from Tempco or evilbay,  get tape from evilbay, 3M yellow polyester,

get bobbins and core material and end bells from Edcor,

Surplus Sales of Nebraska also has bobbins,

 

[Bonke]

Wow! Great ideas everyone!
@Henke How far did you get with the Arduino/Lab view project?
@CJ Will absolutely start with this but I am really into building a automatic coil winder as well. Thank you for the tips!

Henrik

 

[CJ]

if you wind 1 layer with the auto winder, and the direction of the traverse goes back the other way, the wire will not lay flat no matter how accurate the winder is, you will need some insulation between layers, which means you have to stop the machine anyway,

and there is some "hysteresis" involved also, which means that the traverse should jump back over towards the other direction a few thousandths of an inch as you need to lead the wire a bit with the wire guide, this could be programmed of course, if you simply reverse the direction of the traverse, wire will build up on that margin and you will get crossovers,

this depends on how close the wire "nozzle" is to the work, and this should be variable for different size coils,

 

[Bonke]

if you wind 1 layer with the auto winder, and the direction of the traverse goes back the other way, the wire will not lay flat no matter how accurate the winder is, you will need some insulation between layers, which means you have to stop the machine anyway,

and there is some "hysteresis" involved also, which means that the traverse should jump back over towards the other direction a few thousandths of an inch as you need to lead the wire a bit with the wire guide, this could be programmed of course, if you simply reverse the direction of the traverse, wire will build up on that margin and you will get crossovers,

this depends on how close the wire "nozzle" is to the work, and this should be variable for different size coils,

Interesting! So CJ, you are a coil-man. How do you wind your coils? All by hand, semi automatic or fully automatic? And how does the big companies wind? They probably have machines with every setting there is available, right? (a lot of $)
I have read that some guitar pickup winders use "scattered" winding. I don't know the benefit of this but it is all very interesting.
Henrik

 

[CJ]

we broke into the zoo and snagged a Lemur for all our winding, does everything for a bag of pop corn, grabs the bobbin, threads the wire, hits Start, and even poops in the back yard,  ;D

only problem is sometimes that big long tail gets snagged in the motor pulley, shreiks like a frog in a blender,