Motors for building a pickup winder.

[narwhal]

I've been thinking for a while about building a simple pickup winder, but never really followed through on it. I recently bought a small lot of 100-120V low-speed synchronous motors at a yard sale (new old stock) and wondered if they would be suitable for using as a motor to turn a spindle for winding a pickup.

 

It looks like they will only do a max of 72 revs/min (about one turn per second).

 

I realize that pickups have thousands of turns of wire.

 

It would take quite a while with this motor. I wonder how many RPMs a pro setup turns at?

 

 

 

 

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[Bowen]

I bought a cheap variable speed jigsaw from Craigslist to make a winder. I think that I spent about $20. Variable speed makes everything much easier.

 

I used a belt reduction to get a good low speed, and ended up with a winder that is variable from about 30 RPM to 2400 RPM. I usually start slow and work my way up to 2000 RPM. Any faster than that and I break the wire pretty frequently.

 

Your 72RPM motor will take about an hour and a half to wind a single coil to 6000 turns. Hand feeding wire onto a spinning pickup bobbin takes pretty intense concentration and is hard on the eyes. Faster is better.

[homestar_kevin]

do you have any pics of that with everything mounted on(pick up, wire feeding in place)

 

I've been very curious about winding pick ups lately, how did you guys get started?

[MahaloVision]

I got Jason Lollar's "book" a few years ago, and there are still some floating around on eBay occasionally. Really simple to build, and it uses an old belt-drive sewing machine motor for the main rotor, and I used another small direct drive motor for the wire guide (it does a scatter wind by design).

[narwhal]

I got Jason Lollar's "book" a few years ago, and there are still some floating around on eBay occasionally. Really simple to build, and it uses an old belt-drive sewing machine motor for the main rotor, and I used another small direct drive motor for the wire guide (it does a scatter wind by design).

 

 

 

Why would you need to motorize the guide? Wouldn't some sort of light tensioner work just as well?

 

The one sold by Schatten doesn't appear to have a motorized guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[larryguitar]

Why would you need to motorize the guide? Wouldn't some sort of light tensioner work just as well? The one sold by Schatten doesn't appear to have a motorized guide. .

 

It's to automate the scatter winding; allows for repeating the same pattern for consistency, and the ability to occasionally use the restroom for kidney health.

[narwhal]

It's to automate the scatter winding; allows for repeating the same pattern for consistency, and the ability to occasionally use the restroom for kidney health.

 

 

 

I see. So it's moving the wire, slowly, from side to side, during the winding process?

 

That is a cool idea.

 

 

 

 

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[jonjohn]

 

I got Jason Lollar's "book" a few years ago, and there are still some floating around on eBay occasionally. Really simple to build, and it uses an old belt-drive sewing machine motor for the main rotor, and I used another small direct drive motor for the wire guide (it does a scatter wind by design).

 

 

yep. + 1. the sweet machine

[larryguitar]

I see. So it's moving the wire, slowly, from side to side, during the winding process? That is a cool idea. .

 

Actually, doing that in a uniform way would result in 'step' winding. You have to figure out a way to randomize the pattern, so it actually scatter winds like a freehanded person would do.

[MahaloVision]

 

Actually, doing that in a uniform way would result in 'step' winding. You have to figure out a way to randomize the pattern, so it actually scatter winds like a freehanded person would do.

 

 

It isn't timed, ratio-matched, or anything like that, so there's no way it will lay coils down right next to each other. I suppose you could deduce a pattern in the coils, but it's so spread out as to appear random. You get the same effect.