I’d like to introduce you to The Funktronic Coil Genie Mk 1:
This is my Arduino-driven pickup winder. I started work on this back in October 2016 and I just finished it in February 2017. Basically, a motor spins the winding plate that triggers an optical sensor. The sensor sends a pulse to the brain, which then tells a stepper motor to advance 1 increment. The stepper drives a 20:1 gear box which then drives a 1/4 20 screw. The screw serves as as the feed guide and traverse mechanism for the pickup wire. The traverse limits are set via joystick and the stepper advances and returns. A local luthier, Bruce Johnson, helped me with the initial concept of the winder and machined a couple parts for me. I designed, fabricated and built the machine and I wrote the software as well. There’s still a few quirks I have to work out, but so far, I’ve wound some really nice coils with it.
The most difficult part of building this machine was affordably sourcing the gears and such. Some of the sizes were odd, so I had to bite the bullet and shell out some cash for those. Others were more common and I could pick them up for a couple of bucks.
I built a little base from oak to house the electronics. By the time I finished, the breadboard was gone. I had to shield everything – the stepper was 2A and it was throwing a lot of electrical interference around. I added a Schmitt trigger and that pretty much took care of that.
Here’s a picture of the build process. I cut all the aluminum parts with a jigsaw and shaped them with a file. I don’t have a CNC machine.
Most of the gearing is housed internally. I hope I don’t ever have to repair or replace the timing belts. Replacing them would require tearing the machine down. I’ve done it a few times already. Mark II is going to be easier to disassemble.
Here’s another picture of the build process. I’d never designed my own machine before. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined it to be, and I could totally see doing it again if I had to. I kept thinking of all the things I could build that could be driven by an Arduino.
A short video of the Funktronic Coil Genie in action:
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