Cheap and dirty traverse for winding wire on a spool

Can you get hold of a scrapped out electric golf bag buggy.

Just need to fit a crank & you would have what you need.Run it off any old 12V supply, battery charger etc.

Dennis wrote in news:YKOdnd5P9qLwoI7MnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@westnet.com.au:

Car windscreen wiper mechanism?

Have a small pamphlet somewhere about how to build a coil winder for making radio coils. Was a derivative of one that used to be sold by all the big electronics suppliers prior to the '70s. Anyway, it used a crank off the coil form shaft to drive a bell crank that drove an arm that moved the wire back and forth, could be adjusted for any size wire and could do the honeycomb style windings like you describe. Just needs to be made bigger. Think I got it from Lindsay back a number years, don't know if it's still in print. Only winder I've seen that combined a tensioner, a form drive and a wire traverse all off one crank handle. Was done with common hardware store parts, a guy with a bunch of stuff in the racks could probably make one up easily.

Hah! Amazon has it:

Stan

Dennis fired this volley in news:YKOdnd5P9qLwoI7MnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@westnet.com.au:

For that sort of application, a crank isn't usually the best. If the reduction between spool and crank rpms is relatively large, a crank will create a reciprocating motion with substantial dwell at both ends, with a velocity that's sinusoidal in amplitude.

That'll result in the wire piling up at the ends of the spool, and being shy in the middle.

You need a mechanism that will reverse more or less instantly (within the limits of inertia, etc.), and for which the velocity is constant across the width of the spool, so that the winding is more uniform. It should move at an irrational ratio to the spool, and reverse in less than half a turn of the spool.

If you're not up to making a dual-lead screw and toggling follower - like on a casting reel - then a cam driving the traverse arm might be the way to go.

Lloyd

I can visualize that, good one!

Just enlarging the picture on the book cover is a big help, thanks!

That book was from Lindsay Publishing, who recently closed their doors when the owner retired.

In a wire mill I worked in, air cylinders and reversing valves were used for welding wire spooling. This method resulted in fairly neat, flat layers.. although not as precise as the close-wound method commonly used for rolls of solder (for example).

Larger spools (2 ft to 5 ft dia) were traversed by other methods.

An AC motor which is capable of nearly instant reversing is the PSC permanent split capacitor type, which are often used with gear reduction boxes, and are capable of variable, regulated speed control when used with the proper controllers.

Without a method of introducing a slight arc/bend in the steel wire (to ensure that it clings to the spool) before it wraps on the spool, when the wire tension is released, the wire will tend to jump off the spool unwinding itself rapidly until all that's left is a continuous backlashed mess.

Spooling steel wire properly is a balance of sustained arc/bend and tension. Tension (or lack of it) is commonly maintained by a dancer, which you're probably familiar with.

This is spring wire, off the spool it wants to straighten out.

You would need the heart shapd cam like on the old shuttle type sewing machines - the one with the bottom thread wound on a small diameter spool about an inch long (wide between end flanges).

Gerry Miller fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Correct. And, FWIW, that book cover depicting the "universal coil winder" does not have a cam shaped to control the reversing velocity. It's (appears to be), just a circular cam with variable offset to limit the throw, depending upon the length of the coil.

That's simple, but a bad choice in terms of preventing the piling we discussed earlier.

Lloyd

Then you better hurry and rewind it all, while it's still winter! ;-)

BIG SNIP

Hey Michael,

Yeah, but somebody else is selling them now. Looks like a neighbour, cuz they are in the same city.

Brian Lawson.

Some were on Ebay at higher prices, and some on Amazon. Over the last few years the list of availible books got shorter. Maybe they will be vailible again?

Do you have the URL for the new source?

You owe me one for that!

Hey Michael,

Sorry, but I don't know, or I would have included it with my first reply. I do know when I read about the "new owner", it is a different name, but located in the same city as the Lindsay's. That's why I wrote that, but I don't know and can't now find what city Lindsay's was in.. I did have a look back a few minutes ago, and found this in my "Favorites" list as being "The new owner of Lindsay books", but going to their site doesn't look right, and they appear quite secretive about where they are located.

Sorry I can't help further.

Brian Lawson. XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thanks for trying. :)