Breadboards are a great way to get started with electronics, they can remove the need for soldering which saves time for beginners who are still getting to grips with the basics of electricity, and they allow quick and easy changes to be made without the risk of melting components. However, they do require the stripping of a lot of hook up wires. While these are readily available off-the-shelf, [Stuart] decided a better solution was in order.
The project starts with a set of standard hand-operated wire strippers. A lasercut acrylic frame is then built, with a series of motors and gears to handle the transport of the wire to be stripped and to open and close the jaws of the wire strippers. Wire is fed in, stripped, fed further, stripped again, and then finally cut. The process then begins anew.
The machine is quite pleasant to watch in action, with a series of motors and limit switches helping to control the mechanism. It’s a great way to populate kits that require plenty of hookup wire without having to resort to the more common pressed-on jumper terminals that dominate the post-Arduino era. For context’s sake, this build is from the distant past, circa 2009. Plans to recreate it are available on Thingiverse. Video after the break.
Given this is the future, perhaps you’d prefer your wires laser-stripped instead?
[Thanks to Nikolai for the tip!]
Love the idea, but too much time lost for the wire snipper to close.
I was thinking the same thing, there is little need for the mechanical advantage he has it setup for. If he changed the thread pitch it would speed things up quite a bit. Though a pneumatic actuator would likely be one of the faster alternatives.
Maybe he could also remove the string of the snipper to make it easy for the motor.
Finally a useful build without 3D printed parts.
To increase teh speed of the clipper i would use a motor with gearbox and some eccentric discs.
I invested in a weidmüller automatic wire stripper similar to this: https://images.weidinger.eu/products/800.118-stripax-ultimate.jpg
This works so good, nearly effortless and much faster than this contraption. And although this is not cheap~70 euros, I am sure the parts and building of the machine did also cost some money.