Rope Braiding Machine Built Entirely From LEGO Technics

February 19, 2016 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

If you’ve ever seen a rope-braiding machine in action, you know they’re amazing machines where bobbins of thread whirl and spin in a complex dance to weave the threads under and over each other. Building one of these machines must be incredibly difficult; building one out of LEGO Technics pieces is darn near insane.

[Nico71], as hardcore a Technics builder as they come, tackled this complex build and made it work. A large drum spins horizontally and carries three groups of three planetary-mounted thread bobbins. The entire drum spins in one direction while the bobbins and another die with three holes spin the other way. The resulting braids are then fed through another spinning die, and the resulting 9-strand rope is taken up by a winding drum. The drum has a self-reversing feeding mechanism to keep the finished spool neat and tidy. The most impressive thing about the build, though, is the fact that it’s all powered by a single motor, and that everything is synchronized via gears, shafts, sprockets, chains and clutches. It’s a Technics tour de force you can see in action after the break.

[Nico71]’s build are pretty amazing. Some are pure art, others are models of classic cars and motorcycles, but things like his loom and the calculator he’s working on now are remarkable. Of course if you need to see more of the mesmerizing ballet of rope-braiding machines, check out this 16-bobbin hand-cranked version.

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16-Bobbin Rope Braiding Machine Inspired By Surplus Store Find

July 29, 2014 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

When the Red Bull Creation build days were past, [David] pulled us aside and asked if we wanted to see the mechanical hack he’s been working on. He built this rope braiding machine, which uses 16 bobbins, with help from his brother [Jed].

Ideas for projects always come from funny places. [David] came up with this one after finding a rope braiding machine at Ax-man Surplus. This outlet, located in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota) has been the origin for innumerable hacks. Just one that comes to mind is this electric scooter project from the ’90s.

[David] wanted to understand how the mechanism, which divides the bobbins up into groups of orbiting spools, actually works. It’s both mesmerizing and quite tough to visualize how it works without really getting in there and looking at the gearing. Thankfully you can do just that if he follows through with his plan to turn this into a kit.

In case you don’t recognize him, [David] was on the 1.21 Jigawatt’s team during this year’s Creation. We’ve also seen a couple of hacks from him in the past like this half-tone drum printer, and this bicycle frame welding jig.

Assembling the prototypes

Outfeed used to help with even braids

Testing prototypes

Turn the crank and 16 bobbins dance around one another

Machine being demonstrated

A 3D-printed maypole braider can produce woven tubes of rope, yarn, or whatever you've got. Al dente spaghetti strands, maybe.

3D-Printed Braiding Machine Will Show You The Ropes

November 4, 2021 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

A maypole braider, aka a circular braider, is a type of horn gear braider that makes braided tubes, like one of those woven finger traps or that lovely bit of gutted paracord that’s jazzing up your otherwise boring DIY USB cable. They are called so because the action mimics the motion of a group of maypole dancers bobbing and weaving around each other in an intricate choreography that results in an equally intricate pole decoration job.

Maypole braiders like [kmatch98]’s are responsible for all kinds of ropes, cords, and other braided goods like fly-fishing lines. They use three or more bobbins, each loaded up with a single strand of yarn.

One of the most important parts of braiding anything, including hair, is maintaining tension on the braid as you go. Here, each bobbin rides inside a bobbin carrier, which performs a number of tasks — it holds the bobbin in place, releases yarn when it’s supposed to, and maintains tension on the yarn while skating a figure eight around the track.

This mesmerizing machine consists of spur gears, a frame with a figure 8 track, a pair of horn gears, and a foot — a guide on the bottom of the bobbin that rides along in the track. Early on, [kmatch98] made a fidget spinner version to visualize the basic function. He studied pictures of commercial bobbin carriers and managed to not only reverse engineer them, but improve the design by eliminating one of the two springs and replacing it with gravity. The remaining spring is used for the bobbin release.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first plastic braiding machine we’ve featured. Here’s one made of freakin’ LEGO.

3D Printed Machine Shows How Braiding Is Done

June 21, 2023 by Dan Maloney 8 Comments

If there’s something more fascinating than watching cleverly engineered industrial machines do their work, we don’t know what it could be. And at the top of that list has to be the machines that do braiding. You’ve probably seen them, with spools of thread or wire dancing under and around each other in an endless ballet that somehow manages to weave a perfect braid. It’s kind of magical.

For those who haven’t seen such a thing, now’s your chance, with this twelve-spool braiding machine. The building methods that [Fraens] used — mainly 3D printing and laser-cut acrylic — make the workings on this machine plain, even to those of us who never learned to manually braid even three strands. It’s far easier to understand by watching the video below than by trying to describe it, but basically, each vertical supply spool runs along a continuous track around a central point by a series of six meshed gears, passing under each other as they progress around the carousel and forming the braid.

There are a ton of details that go into making this work. Chief among them is the thread tensioning mechanism, which is a lever arm and spring-loaded axle that lives at the very center of each spool. The gears that form the inside-outside tracks are quite clever too, as are the worm-gear-driven takeup reel and output tensioner. We also appreciated the gate used to load the spool carriers into the track.

We can recall a couple of braiding machines before, including this one made entirely from Lego Technics.

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See The Forbidden Cigarette Machine In Action

November 20, 2022 by Elliot Williams 64 Comments

[Fraens] has been designing a number of fantastic 3D printed machines and making great videos that demonstrate how they work. The last installment was an automatic cigarette stuffing machine, and it’s got a number of pretty complex motions, and somehow manages to get the job done.

While [Fraens] usually uploads STL files for all of his machines, this one is forbidden! Selling automatic cigarette loaders is illegal in Europe, and it’s not clear how close to the legal edge posting them up on Thingiverse is. So until the legal dust settles, you’re going to have to be content with the fantastic video, also embedded below.

But honestly, the devil’s sticks aren’t good for your health anyway, and you’re probably just in it for the mechanicals. Think for a moment about the problem – you’ve got a hopper of tobacco fibers that all like to stick together, and you need to pack them into an easily squished lightweight paper tube. These tubes aren’t easy to handle either. The solution to both of these calls for solenoid-powered tappers that agitate both into place.

There’s also a 3D printed rack and pinion to do the pushing, and a cool stepper-driven revolver mechanism to put the empty papers into just the right place. The machine leans heavily on 3D printing, but also on simple hardware-store parts like aluminum and brass tubes. [Fraens]’s builds are always simple but simultaneously very slick, and you’ll learn a lot from watching it all go together.

And when you’re done, check out some others from [Fraens]. We’ve been impressed by his sewing machine, braiding machine, and even a power loom.

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LEGO Technics Machine Produces True Braided Rope

November 28, 2016 by Dan Maloney 24 Comments

We love a good LEGO build as much as anyone, but Technics takes it to the next level in terms of creating working mechanisms. And nobody takes Technics as far as [Nico71], as evidenced by his super-fast Technics rope braiding machine.

The last time we saw one of [Nico71]’s builds, it was also a LEGO Technics rope-making machine. At the time, we called it a “rope-braiding machine” and were taken to task in the comments since the strands were merely twisted to make the final product. [Nico71] must have taken that to heart, because the current build results in true braided cordage. That trick is accomplished by flying shuttles that are not attached to either of the two counter-rotating three-spoked wheels. The shuttles are transferred between the two wheels by a sweeper arm, each making a full revolution with one wheel before being transferred to the other. Each shuttle’s thread makes an intertwining figure-eight around the threads from the two fixed bobbins, and the result is a five-strand braided cord. The whole machine is mesmerizing to watch, and the mechanism is silky smooth even at high speeds. It seems like a much simpler design than the previous effort, too.

You’ve got to hand it to builders like [Nico71] that come up with fascinating machines while working within the constraints of the Technics world. And those that leverage the Technics platform in their builds can come up with pretty neat stuff, like this paper tape reader for a music machine.

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Hackaday Podcast 052: Shorting Components, Printing Typewriter Balls, Taking Minimal Time Lapse, And Building A Makerspace Movie Prop

January 31, 2020 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys recap a great week in hardware hacking. There’s perfection in the air as clever 3D-printing turns a button and LED matrix into an aesthetically awesome home automation display. Take a crash course in RF modulation types to use on your next project. Did you know the DB-9 connector is actually a DE-9? Building your own underwater ROV tether isn’t as simple as it sounds. And Elliot found a treasure trove of zero-ohm jumpers in chip packages — what the heck are these things for?

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)