Make Your Own Machine To Wind Cotton On A Bare Copper Wire for STUBBLEFIELD COIL

[FrozenWaterLab]

Went out to dig around in the back.
When I came back there was my UPS carbon delivery.
Wanted to share
(Think Copper is expensive)
Well to stay on topic I through I'd throw my treadmill motors and PWM's out also.
They are about 1 3/4 hp ea. Overkill I think But speed controllable.

I also placed my copper rods and arc carbon's
and a Non-magnetic stainless rod I'll use for testing.
I intend to get some aluminum also and I have 1" X 1' magnesium Rod's coming.
FrznWtr

[electricme]

@ FrozenWater,

You sure are keen about building your own Cotton Winding Machine for Stubblefield Coils, good to see, and I also see there are quite a number of folks in the back ground, looking at our ramblings, "welcome to you all also" 

Ahmmmm, you betta take a look at the date of your posted photos, it's out by a month, it's still June  but it's nice to see the pics of what you have there.

That's a very thick wheel, you won't have any trouble mounting your cotton reels, I'm a little concerned though, when they get up to speed, you might need disk brakes on them to slow them down in a hurry.
I think the width of them might be a problem, I relate to the distance between the 1st 3 cotton threads layed on the bare wire, to when the wire with those threads appears at the end where the 2nd cotton layer is applied.
It could be several inches between these layers, if a thread gets broken or one cotton reel comes up short during the winds, you will have a lot of unwinding to do to put it right before beginning again.

You could use a high speed motor with a soft start feature to wind from your cotton stock onto smaller reels.
Soft start meaning it starts slowly building up to speed , if it starts too quickly, the forces will snap the cotton thread.
 
That's a nice load of cotton reels, they look like overlocker ones.
Once again, well done.

jim

[electricme]

Looking at this DRIVE BELT TENSIONER
Or something like it.
Field trip to the auto junk yard is in order
Question is can the steel wheel be replaced with a hard rubber one?
FrznWtr

An idea just popped into my head, look around for a rubber radiator water pipe that would be a snug fit over that fan belt tension-er, then you could use it with a smaller drive.

I am on the look out for a clear plastic tube which I want to glue on the drive shaft on my cable drawer motor, but will need to make a spring tension-er to put pressure on the drive shaft.

Actually, what we are making is very similar to the mechanism which drives the old cassette audio tapes which were setup in tape recorders and VHS video recorders.

jim

2905 = my cotton sizes, the biggie is 50,000 meters, about 150,000 feet, the smaller is what I am using right now for testing.
2998 = Wire eyelets I made to "guide" the cotton threads so they land correctly onto the bare wire.

Tomorrow will be a soldering day for me, time to make up another PWM Kitt to drive the counter rotating wheels, a fun fun fun day.

[FrozenWaterLab]

Hay Jim and all
Yaah I noticed the count going up on those pics also.
Blasted techy new devices. I need a 7 or 8 year old round here to properly program my camera now. Sheese

Well I'm hopping my motors will have a soft start with the PWM controller.
ya know the treadmills can start very slow to begin with. I intend to use that small 3/4" drive to a large 6" or 8" to drive my maybe 4" V-belt pulley.
I figure thethread pulleys will only be 3/8" apart so tube through bearings only 6 1/2" Tube supported by welded 1/4" Plate in center. You are right but at the price I couldn't resist. Cheapest 8" pulley I could find up here was $40

Wish I was good at CAD drawing.

Now the spool cones of thread should point to the center and not spin. The centripetal force should keep the thread on the spools unless pulled off by need of wire wrap. I think Haha
Guess I'll have to try it right.
At this point I'm not lookin for speed. I want to experiment with NS coils and I like doing my own stuff. I want to wrap both aluminum and Iron wires to try them, Maybe copper also. So when I saw your thread Jim, I was with ya all the way
Well I'm into the wee hours and need some rest
Hope your day goes well.
Skip @ Frozen Water Labs

[electricme]

@ FrozenWater

Nylon Bolt Guide size for, into the shaft after 1st thread layer is wound on, would need to be larger.
(Also thought an plastic pipe mounted to the thread wheel center, with 3 little holes to guide the strands would be very stable.)

(Uh oh I might just have made an enamy of your Misses, Jim please leave her machine alone will ya ;')  )

(Was thinking it might be better to have the drive wheels pushing on the bare wire then pulling on the threaded wire? What do you think) Maybe Both?

Take-up spool should be driven also but with minimal pressure - I would think.
? Do you intend to drive a spooler for your take-up real?
I was thinking of something already made like a deep sea rod type (Might be spendie though) then have to have narrow deep spool. Spool Synked to spooler?

Yah the speed and sinking everything is a real chalange thats why I mentioned having a PWM on the thread wheel driver. Its more control. I'm thinking if the thing can go mabey 1/4 of what it appeared to be doing in your videos I would be real happy. So what if it takes 5-6-7 Hrs to do a roll of wire. I'm on my own deadline Right

Every step brings another problem needing another solution right. Maby an attachment on an old sewing machine, Hum

FrznWtr

Short plastic pipe with the holes drilled through would be a good idea also, pity I didn't think of that.
The Misses will be OK, don't worry about upsetting her, she got no say in the matter, probably would grunt OK though lol.

If you try pushing on the bare wire and it gets cought up somehow it will bunch up and kink, when it's strightened out, it will become cristaline and weak at that point, just use the pull through method, less risks.

Friction geared drive on the takeup reel is the way to go, as the gear motor can have built in "slip" by a preassure spring adjusted via a wing nut.

Everyones machine will be different, to suit themselves, I'm not worried at all, just be sure it can do the job, fast or slow, but the operator must have control of it.

jim