fab-academy2

Applications and Implications  May 25. 2016

This weeks task covers a proposal of the final project that integrates the range of units covered.

Final Project: CNC Coil winding machine

What will it do?

The coil winder will wind coils to precise specifications (turns and winding patterns). It is targeted for guitar pickups winding but can be used for any other types of coils that have bobbin.

Who´s done what forehand?

There are many commercial products available and also many DIY designs as well but no readily available plans for CNC type winder. My design is following a particular commercial design by UK CNC Design LTD.

What materials and components will be required?

1 Modified Fabduino board (from scratch)

2 Stepper motors

2 Stepper motor drivers (board design for Pololu clone modules)

Two aluminum pulleys and a drive belt.

Axis rod for a pulley

Cables to connect the pins of the entire circuit

FTDI cable for programming and control

Miniatyre linear rails with carriage (second-hand parts from Ebay)

Acrilyc structure to serve as a base for the winder

3D printer filament

Electronic components PCB material for electronics

(Arduino for development)

Where will they come from?

Most of the material are provided by Fab Lab Oulu

From Ebay: Linear rails, pulleys and belt

How much it will cost?

Around 100€

What parts and systems will be made?

Base structure of the machine (mechanics), electronics, and pcb for the modules, Bobbin for a guitar pickup.

What processes will be used?

3D printing, laser cutting (the structure), CNC milling (the boards), soldering (the circuits) and programming (the movement and API), PCB design.

What tasks need to be completed?

Nothing is completely ready but experiments from previous weeks help the task.

What questions need to be answered?

There couple of questions:

    1. What is the speed achieved with the stepper motors?

    2. How to synchronize the motors

    3. How to do tensioning of the coil wire (steady or adaptive)

    4. What is needed from the microcontroller to have the GUI

What is the schedule?

Develop and test the software for controlling the steppers (one week)

  • Hardcoding the functionality
  • Making of user interface

Design and implement the structure of the device (one week)

  • 3D cad model needs to be drawn to have the models for 3D printing and laser cutting.

How will it be evaluated?

The minimum requirement is that we can hardcode the machine to do wind a guitar pickup with steady speed that can be as low a few tens rpm. Additional features are introduced as soon as the initial functionality is reached. Increasing the rpms, introducing winding patterns, building a graphical user interface. As much as the time permits.

 

More details of the final project is in the Final Project page