omg its slow

I’d only impressed if they were stripped, bundled and labelled.

Kidding! Kidding !
:-)

Great job! There’s something elegantly “Golbergian” about that cutter wheel.

In the Event HAD is keeping track or or counting, I liked this. Keep posting similar if you find them.

@Chris. Evidently this job order didn’t require the wire ends to be stripped. I that he has aready built a machine that cuts and strip wire, he should build a machine that’s more adaptable wire type and job needs. When he is not rushed to meet a deadline, than gain that might me when he is more creative. I wouldn’t know. As long as he and those expecting the wire on time are happy, that’s all that matters.

I would call this capital equipment, and even though he could maybe work faster by hand, now he can set it to working while he’s doing something else. It’s his robotic slave! I love it.

Why did he reduce the drive motor speed so much? This thing could fly if it even went 4x as fast. Also, who orders 2000 cut wires? Isn’t that sort of weird?

@ tyco,

You speak like all other companies. Yeah it is cheaper to have a bot do it, than a human. No labor costs, no medical coverage, no striking, no slacking on the job. But you also realize with every robot created to do a humans job, that is 1 less job for us.

I understand this a automated wire-cutter and I dont know why he would hire a person just to cut wires. But I was talking about in the masses.

Plus if it was faster in the long run to cut it by hand (Which it would of been), then he would of been $80 richer, and still have it done on time. If it took him 12 hours to build it, and you figured that into man hours for cutting the wires. That means for a 12 hour period he would of had to cut a wire every 21 sec.

He already took the time to build the machine, why not just cut the wires now. And take the time to build a machine that can do more. He wasted 12hours of his time with this.

Great build though.

I don’t think he wasted his time at all. Next time someone orders cut wires, he’ll already have this machine ready to rock.

Also, while it’s logically true that each robot doing a job displaces a human, it’s also true that each robot built is going to require maintenance, parts and programming. That should generate at least as many jobs as it displaces; they’ll just be more skilled jobs. I think most people would agree that the move toward a service-based economy in the Western world means fewer low-skill jobs and more high-skill jobs. Good or bad, that’s the reality. Now if only we could get kids to realize this before they drop out of school…

And finally, on the topic: I like this simple, solid build. It’s clean and it gets the job done. Could be faster, but that’s what tweaking is for.

Brilliant!

If there’s an LCD screen with length options I hope there’s one option that’s simply labelled “this long” because of the amount of times I’ve been asked to make a cable with plug X on one end and plug Y on the other and the length isn’t mentioned or just “this long”…

Hmm, maybe we (the internet collective) should try and find out what “this long” actually is in cm/inch by everyone inputting their measurement of “this long” into a simple database to find out the average.

@Patrick – you hit the nail on the head.
I tossed the idea of doing them by hand (I’ve done it before) – as I assemble custom embedded controllers for an order.
I just didn’t look forward to sitting at a bench, for a couple of man-hours (imn reality more real-world hours!) to get the result – and as you guessed – I have it again for next time.
Averyone’s comments are valid – I wanted to do somtehing creative other than cut wires on a cold winter weekend, and this was it.
And yes – there are a lot of things I learned which will make the next iteration somewhat faster and more elegant!
Cheers for the feedback, and all power to the ‘real’ hackers of the world!

P.S. ‘This Long’ is directly proportional the length of wet string when it has dried out.

I’ve been wanting to build something like this for awhile now, just keep not having time for it.

I was planning to use a PIC to control the feed, probably using steppers, with an LCD to help the user select the wire length (1 inch or more, in .100″ increments), and select if they want one or both ends stripped (thermal stripper), with an output bin so they’re sort of bundled. I was planning something a lot smaller though, designed for 22ga AWG solid core, basically for jumper wires.

This build might inspire me to actually get started. :)

Wow-this is excellent for what it does. The surplus electronics place I worked had a half-ton machine rusting on the back dock, from a Magnavox plant in TN that was dedicated to this exact task in high speed (it cut and stripped narrow gage wire for board stuffing at high speed) this is not bad at all for something that fits on the work bench.

For the next iteration you should use a disc cutter like you see on the ends of extrusion machines. Where one edge of the cutter is the wire guide and the other is a plate with N holes drilled in it that line up with the guide, then when the wire is at the appropriate length the disc rotates N/360* to cut the wire and line up the next hole.

Thanks @DRAKE – all valid suggestions

QUAD Encoders on feed motor shaft – unfortunately does not give closed-loop feedback on what the wire is actally doing. slip etc is not accounted for.

V-groove – already in the unit you are watching.

2 Idlers – not sure how that can reduce slip?

Gears always help – very true. Add cost & complexity – and reduce speed, but always worth considering to get the result.

Power supply – I originally used a small battery bank with a constant charger – but after about 20 minutes operation the voltage began to drop to the extent that the motors labored during the heavy load periods – and of course lost some feed length (aargh!) As this was a quickie solution – instead of building feedback on the wire feed length, I simply stuffed a 7.2V 20A mains supply on the job. Problem solved – but solution noted, and next iteration will have closed loop feedback on the wire drive!

Cheers & thanks

The guy is thinking too complex.

I would have taken a piece of wood, hammered two nails into it at the specified distance, and spun the wire from the spool on the nails a hundred times.

Then all you need is strong cutters to clip the wires all at once. You only need to repeat the process ten times because each time produces 200 pieces of wire. The whole job would have been over in less than half an hour.

@MC: Do you sell these? I’m looking for a solution very similar to this, but don’t need the $1500 solution.