Coil Winding Machine Makes It Easy

[Mr Innovative] needed to wind some coils, and decided to make a machine to do the work. Making such machines has become a lot easier over the years. There was a time when we might probably have had to hack an old printer or scanner to get linear rods and stepper motors. Now, thanks to widespread 3D printing, we can order parts like that from lots of places. The 3D printing helps, too, to fabricate all the little custom widgets you need to put something like that together.

The machine looks great. It uses a number of parts that would look at home on a 3D printer or CNC build. We thought his Chinese mini table saw did a great job cutting the aluminum extrusions, but we did worry about the safety of his fingers. We’ll admit we are generally lazy and buy the extrusions precut.

Of course, for those who are only making a few coils, a dowel rod in a variable speed drill will get you there. But if you were doing even a small production run, we could see the value of this. It would be pretty simple to add software to control the number of turns, the speed, and other parameters.

This reminded us of a recent build we saw for winding pickup coils. The real value, though, is a machine to wind those pesky tesla coils with lots of turns of fine wire.

19 thoughts on “Coil Winding Machine Makes It Easy

      1. Err, well, I have made a CNC machine shop…
        But I wasn’t meaning to sound negative. I was suggesting that this is so close to a (small) CNC lathe that it could be one, and then could make the coil formers too, for example.
        I took the magneto of my bike to a rebuilder some time ago, for remagnetising, and found that their coil winder was a lathe (an old Myford). There is so much in common, that you might as well.
        Here is a fairly large lathe making a very small coil:
        https://youtu.be/F01FI52zFg0
        (not mine, just someone I follow on YouTube)

        1. given the operating speed of most CNC machines other than mill spindles, I think a Mandrel Mill would be a better task than a lathe (making the distinction that a lathe uses the rotating work to apply the force while a mandrel mill would use a separate spindle motor and high speed bit)

  1. For a couple of hundred bucks, you to could buy a lot of unnecessary precision mechanical components to help wind simple coils of a specifically fixed diameter. With such a unit needing materials preparation, constant operator assistance and final product finishing.

    What a complete and utter waste of time and money.

    I really don’t know who HAD is trying to appeal to these days. I do actually have access to youtube and I could watch this stuff if I wanted to.

    I like to read text that has hints and specifications and see schematic diagrams and especially “new” ideas or concepts. This sort of information helps me actually do things as opposed to “watching” other people do things without knowing any of the detail.

    It seems Hack a Day is now far less about hackers and has drifted away to being some sort of passive tech voyeurism.

      1. I looked for the schematic to see why there’s an L298 when the two A4988s drive the two NEMA17s. But all I could see was a glimpse of the board artwork in preparation for sending to the fab house. meh.

        I can see this article being nominally useful to inspire others to use his simple tools and materials.

        The lack of a link to a github repo with the schematics makes it seem less than open, tho.

    1. Totally agree, but I don’t think it’s HaD per se. It’s one particular author who excels at using plural pronouns rather than first person singular. The same author who posts articles about his personal experience of reproducing others elementary concepts.

    2. When I was a kid my Dad made a coil winder out of a sewing machine motor, some scrap lumber, and some threaded rod (aka “allthread”). That thing lasted many years and wound many coils, including some ridiculously big Tesla coils. I think it cost him about $5 to put together, along with the better part of an afternoon.

  2. L298 is seriously obsolete. Please stop using that.
    Have a look at something like A4950 or DRV8871

    Machine looks flashy, but is is actually used for something, or is the whole video just made as a vehicle to push advertisements?

  3. I saw nothing about altering the stepper motor speeds to wind coils differently. Maybe he hasn’t the neednti wrap any coil but these and cannot fathom it – and maybe as alluded to, he just wants to promo a pcb shop. But until proven, I’ll hope they just sponsor him. A reach, I know.

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