Very nice winder! Many professional winders pull the wire off the end of
the spool to avoid the large angular momentum of the rotating spool. That
way, if you have to stop the spool doesn't keep turning and make a big
tangle or kinks, and doesn't break the wire when you start it. This only
works for wire sizes around 20 and smaller. It works better if you put a
sleeve made from an old pair of sweatpants around the spool to provide a
little friction. It should extend about three inches above the spool. I
worked in a plant where we wound TV flyback xfmrs with #39 wire (just barely
visible) and this was the scheme our winders used.
---Carl
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lux
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:03 AM
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [TCML] Tesla Coil Winder
On 1/28/14 1:59 AM, krux@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In the quest to create a Tesla coil, one of the tasks that must be
completed
is winding your secondary coil. This is a tedious process of wrapping
magnet
wire many hundreds of times around your secondary coil form. Trying of
course
to make sure the winding is straight, free of gaps, and overlaps. It's a
job
that didn't sound very fun, which is why I decided that when it came time
to
wind the secondary coil for Project Icarus, I would build a machine to do
it
for me.
Very slick.
Are you going to publish some of the technical details? How big are the
motors (I think they're steppers, from the look)? Did you calibrate the
lead screw, or is it consistent enough that the turns lay down nicely?
Do you have some thing to put drag on the supply spool?
What happens if the supply spool snags: sometimes, you get a turn that
wedges down between the flange and the next layer on the spool? Does it
just stop (or you hit the stop button quickly), and then you figure out
what to do to fix it?
Do you lay a piece of double stick tape on the form before winding so
that if you get a break or a tension drop, the turns don't "sproing" loose?
What's the underlying processor? Arduino? something else?
Very interesting base panel. It looks like an optical bench, but I
assume it's wood and drilled on some sort of NC drill? Is that an off
the shelf thing for breadboards? Where do you get them?
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