Show & Tell: Motorized Bobbin Winder

[dikman]

While rummaging around in my garage I came across a motor that was used for a height-adjustable table. It has a gearbox on the end and runs off 24v. In fact, when I checked this thread it looks very similar to Uwe's. Hmmm, thinks I, this looks promising. I had the transformer that powered it, but of course nothing was connected or labelled. After connecting the power to the wrong windings the first time (50/50 chance, and Murphy's Law says I'll get it wrong!) and tripping the cct breaker I re-connected it and got 28v AC. A 10 amp rectifier bridge gave me 25v DC. When I connected the power, however, I found it runs a bit slower than Uwe's (the gearing is obviously different).

Guess I won't be needing a speed control.

Tomorrow I'll rewire it properly and use a reversing switch, as well as make up suitable bobbin holders. And a box to put it in. And a spool holder. And a thread tension device.

[TinkerTailor]

I've been keeping it secret, I may have also solved this problem. Variable speed and 11 seconds per bobbin. More to come...But i will blow my horn in my own thread. For now, 1 crappy iphone3 photo is all you get. Fully aware it will not work set up as it is in the photo.

Edited November 6, 2015 by TinkerTailor

[dikman]

That's what's known as a teaser, TT. I, for one, look forward to some details?

In the meantime this is the initial device that I cobbled together (it lacks the finish of Uwe's, mainly because I wanted to see if it would work first). Which it does, but it's slower than Uwe's. To speed it up would require using a pulley converter on the output shaft, which seems to defeat the purpose of gearing the motor down in the first place, or removing the gearbox completely, which then creates more problems as the gearbox housing is the actual mounting point for the motor assembly.

While it winds ok, if using #69 thread it would take a while to wind, which means I'll need to fit a cut-off switch so that it stops when wound (then it would be a "set and forget" device). I reckon a micro-switch, set so that the arm trips when the bobbin is full (like the mechanical arm on a normal winder) should work.

I do have some smaller 24v motors, but they are high speed and may not have the torque when running slow. More experimenting, I suppose. But at the moment I now have a slow speed, high torque winder.