Quick, you need 1000 pieces of wire of the same length, what do you do? The disappointing answer is to put on the miniseries masterpiece Frank Herbert’s Dune and get to work snipping those bits by hand. We usually clamp a scrap piece of molding protruding perpendicular to the bench to use as a length guide in these cases.
The more exciting answer is to build a robot to do it for you. There’s no way you can build the robot faster than you could cut the wire… unless you have admirable rapid prototyping skills like [Eberhard]. He strapped together a barebones machine from two motors, and one switch in no time. Pretty amazing!
Wire coming off the spool feeds through two guides held by a third-hand. The outfeed length depends entirely on timing; two slices of wine cork drive the wire which passes through the open jaws of a wire snip. Those snips are hot-glued in place, with a motor winding up a strip connected to the other handle in order to make the cut. The only feedback is a limit switch when the snip is fully open.
It is entirely possible to get even less advanced. Here’s the same concept without the limiting switch. We appreciate the eloquence of the snipper squeeze method on that one. But for the most part we think you’ll be interested in one that goes about stripping the wire ends as well as cutting to length.
Hey can you actually throw on the Dune miniseries? Not that crappy 1980’s movie but the 2000 SciFi TV miniseries. It was quite good but you can’t seem to stream it from anywhere.
Trivial to find on torrent sites
this.
also use a seedbox if your ISP, etc. could cause trouble.
It’s on Youtube. I used it as background noise while studying for Circuits II. It was invaluable.
Indeed it is. Cool
“Here’s the same concept without the limiting switch.” Naaaa, it also uses a switch to synchronize the actuator wheel of the snip (some kind of opto switch behind the wheel).
hack of the year
I’ve never had to cut 1K pieces of wire to the same length, so maybe I’m missing something — but what kinds of projects require that many pieces of wire exactly the same length?
Small scale production runs (if you check his website, he sells a multicopter telemetry device)
Limited production runs of custom electronics of all types, last time I needed that many little bits was for several custom 12 channel microphone pre amps for a broadcast facility that had multi-pin connectors unavailable in PCB mount and needed jumpers from connector to board, I think it came out to around 600 6″ wires (I hired an out of work bass player to cut them for me as piece work). This is a brilliant hack by the way! A true hack-not pretty, just gets the job done and well executed, I give it an eleven!
brilliant hack.
an even faster (though not that cool) way could’ve been to wrap the wire around a cylinder (like a pvc pipe) with just one layer so the wire coveres the whole surface (use an electric drill to spin the pipe). then cut two times along the long side of the cylinder at the right length and you end up with a bunch of wires all having the same length. propably some tape to hold them in place. more wasteful this method and wire is bent.
I was thinking something like this too, although more adjustable. You’d really only have to cut once too.
But where is the fun in it? :)
“more wasteful this method and wire is bent” Especially the latter one would be a deal breaker in my case…
I read the headline and thought ‘A. What kind of project uses 1 kilometer segments of wire? And B. How big is the feed spool that it would hold so many 1 kilometer segments that the process would need to be automated?’
Then I read the article. I’ve cut hundreds of wire segments at a time to assemble kits for training sessions. This hack is awesome.
I love the pull-down method for the cutters – I had to remove the original spring (waay to strong))
Here’s what I did 4 years ago for the same p[roblem… (Also posted on HAD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-6niamGsu4
Is it correct, that you did not use any switch to synchronize the cutter action? I thought I saw some kind of opto switch behind the actuator wheel of the cutter, right?
Correct. No physical switches – just the reflective opto.
If I had more time (this was a 12 hour deadline), I would have made some linear sensing as well, but feed-motor run time (with a heavy duty PSU) was quite reliable.
I was going to build mine with a integrated stripper to strip them at the same time it cuts, but this project is finished, unlike mine.
Love the quick and dirty aspect of this. Something elegant could be built but would take way too long as opposed to just sitting down and earning a few calluses on your hand. Now I want to see a DIY build that cuts to length and also strips both ends!
This would make things a lot more complex. Lucky me, I need the wires unstripped for my project!
Mmm…my idea is a pair of wheels, one of which is the circumference equivalent to the length of wire you cut.
Embed a blade into one of the wheels.
Turn wheels, acquire wires, ????, profit.
Granted, the only way to adjust the length is to change the diameter of the cutting wheel, but, eh. Very quick setup (assuming you already have a way of producing a correctly-sized wheel), still much easier than cutting by hand.
I tend to think of this machine http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:319 previously featured on hackaday when it comes to wire cutting.
Now you can just modify the software so you can enter an array of different length wires and make it cut for you.
I think you mean elegant, not eloquent, unless you’re talking about how well-spoken the wire cutters are.
For solid core breadboard wire I always strip off a long length of the insulation. Then for a jumper I cut the insulation exactly to length between the holes then cut the conductor to length plus 16mm. Then push the conductor back through the insulation leaving 8mm either end. It sounds long winded but can save time if you’re doing loads and you have no chance of damaging the conductor.
Or maybe wrap 50 turns of wire around 2 nails driven in a board with some space between them, then cut the bundle to length with a bolt cutter? 5 minutes job… It’s the way I was making jumper wires for breadboards before realizing I could buy them already made :)
I think I would just call up a company, and order 1000 pieces of wire, while I continue my other work.
Well, I guess this is what sets business people apart from hackers and makers…
And, if you calculate the time to look up a supplier and set up a deal (i.e. writing down the wire specs, getting quotes, choosing a supplier, hoping that they really deliver what you want, etc.), I doubt that there’s much time saved (at least as long you’re able to hack a DIY solution together in a couple of hours, like I did). And this doesn’t even count the advantage of a 0-day lead time and no shipping costs for the DIY solution…
Exactly. Also, in small scale manufacturing, being able to make 10-20 of something quickly, without sinking money into an order of 10,000 of something can be key.