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Coil Winding Machine

https://tinkersprojects.com/coil-winding-machine/

Manual winding is a task requiring immense patience and concentration to achieve neatly arranged coils with precise turn counts. This Coil Winding Machine project is therefore designed to revolutionize this process, making it easy and highly efficient. It is suitable for creating coils for motors, transformers, or various sensors.

The machine's design blends strength and flexibility, utilizing a primary structure of Aluminum Extrusion combined with parts produced by 3D Printer and Laser-cut machines. This results in a lightweight yet precise machine during operation.

System Engineering Operation (How it Works)

The core of this machine is the synchronization between two motors:

1. Main Spindle Motor: Rotates the bobbin to wind the wire.
2. Slide Motor (Traverse Mechanism): Moves back and forth horizontally to evenly lay the wire, ensuring uniform distribution across the bobbin.

Once the user mounts the object (bobbin) for winding and threads the wire into the Slide assembly, the system will begin operation according to the set parameters (e.g., number of turns, bobbin width, and wire diameter). The Slide assembly moves in relation to the rotational speed. If the wire is small, the Slide moves slower to ensure tight wire packing. Conversely, if the wire is large, the Slide moves proportionally faster.

Although currently controlled via parameter menus, the machine's architecture is designed to support G-Code commands in the future, enabling the winding of more complex coil shapes.

Components and Hardware Design

• Mechanical Frame: Utilizes Aluminum Extrusion as the main backbone to ensure that the rotational axis and the slide axis are always parallel, reducing vibrations that could affect wire tension.
• Actuators: Uses Nema17 Stepper Motors due to their consistent torque and high-resolution positional control.
• Controller: Uses the PLEX Controller, a control board specifically designed for motor control. Its key feature is support for stackable Stepper Drivers, which saves space and simplifies maintenance.
  • Controller Details: https://www.tindie.com/products/williambailes/plex-controller/

Software Logic Analysis

The control system is developed on the Arduino platform, utilizing key libraries to manage the complexity of movement timing:

1. AccelStepper Library: An essential component for controlling motor speed and acceleration. Using AccelStepper allows motors to gradually ramp up speed and ramp down, preventing wire breakage due to sudden jerks when starting or stopping.

   • AccelStepper Library Link

2. LCD-Simple-Menu-Library: Used to create the User Interface on an LCD screen, enabling users to directly set various variables such as TurnsCount, WireDiameter, and WindingWidth from the machine itself, without modifying the code.

   • LCD-Simple-Menu-Library Link

3. Coordination Logic: The program calculates the ratio between the steps of the spindle motor and the slide motor using the formula: Distance to Move per Turn = Wire Diameter This logic is processed in real-time to ensure that for every 1 rotation, the slide assembly moves a precise distance equal to the wire diameter.

Source Code for Arduino: https://tinkersprojects.com/coil-winding-machine/

Extensions for Future Development

For advanced users, this machine also supports operation via G-Code using an auxiliary library, which allows you to program custom winding patterns via computer:

• Gcode library:https://github.com/tinkersprojects/G-Code-Arduino-Library

With a design that prioritizes both simplicity and engineering precision, this coil winding machine is a perfect tool for makers or engineers looking to produce high-quality coils themselves within an accessible budget.