Pickup winding - handling the wire spool

[Steve Sawyer]

Hi all - I've been lurking here for quite a while as I have a half-finished Telecaster copy that has been on hold for over a year while I completely re-designed my woodworking shop, and am anxious to get back to work on this project.

I'm interested in winding my own pickups and will be building a winding machine of some kind - there is no end of options for doing that. But can anyone enlighten me as to where to place the spool and how to mount it so as to feed the wire without breaking it?

I've spent hours watching dozens of folks wind pickups on YouTube videos, but the one thing that no-one ever shows is how they handle the spool of wire. It always appears that the spool is sitting somewhere below the workbench, on the floor or someplace near the operator's knees or feet. I see people really cranking on the turns then bringing the winder to a dead stop, so the spool obviously isn't sitting on some kind of dowel or other free-spinning axle as it would continue to spin creating a birds-nest of copper wire, so it seems that the spool has to have something retarding its rotation somehow.

On the other hand, it seems you can't have too much drag on the wire as I'm sure 42 gauge wire will break if you scowl at it, let alone try to pull it at a high rate off of a spool that isn't rotating fairly easily.

Thanks for the help!!

[David King]

Hi S,
Welcome to the MIMF. The spools are always stood vertically so that the wire comes off the top end of the spool. It does get a twist every time a loop comes off but the wire is generally so thin that the twist is inconsequential.
Depending on the winder design the spool with either be on the floor in front of and below the winder or at the back for automated winders. My home made winder has the spool on a shelf that sticks out just in front and below the winder.

Some design characteristics you might want to follow:
Put the winder shaft at a comfortable EYE LEVEL.
Make the table height a comfortable height for your elbows to rest on while you are controlling the traverse.
Put a white card with horizontal lines directly behind the bobbin at eye level so that you can see the wire level as it accumulates on the bobbin and judge whether it's piling up unevenly.
Place a light source slightly above and behind the bobbin so that it shines towards you but doesn't blind you. It does reflect off the wire so you can see exactly where the wire is going.
Use round discs with polished edges to mount your bobbins on that won't inadvertently catch the wire.
Place a cylinder with a funnel top over your wire spool to guide the wire up off the spool (Use a gallon plastic jug with a centered opening on top and cut out the bottom. Windshield washer fluid jugs work well.)
Have your side to side wire guide as close to the bobbin as possible.
Have your wool felt tension disks as far from the bobbin as possible.
Keep wire feed directional changes to a minimum and polish all surfaces that the wire passes over. Delrin guides work well.
Put your turns counter as close to the line of sight for the bobbin as possible.
Use a Preset counter that shuts off the wider at the predetermined number.

[Steve Sawyer]

Thanks, David - I'd originally thought that would be the best way to feed the wire, but I was concerned that the edges of the spool may catch the wire. Apparently that's not an issue (assuming the spool edges aren't all boogered up). Good to know.

Thanks for the other tips. I'm also into cycling, and it sounds like some of the same principles for setting up a truing stand for building wheels applies - the lighting and background so you can see what's happening with the wind!

That's a nice rig you have. I have an Arduino, some digital readouts and some salvaged stepper motors that I'm going to try to use to build my winder. Should be fun. I note your mention of felt tensioning disks, and I think I see those in your picture. I haven't seen that before, but definitely sounds like a good idea. Allows you to concentrate on the traverse rather than the wire tension, no?

And sorry for the user name. I normally use my real name when registering for online forums, but wasn't sure if this forum supported it at the time (I think it was back when this board was running different forum software). I emailed the moderator to ask if there is some way to change that a few weeks ago but never received a reply, so it may be cast in stone at this point. I did update my signature so everyone will know me as "Steve"

[David King]

Steve it is. I'm sure one of the moderators can help you with a name change or you can simply make a new persona and start over.

[Barry Daniels]

Steve, I fixed your user name.

[David King]

My next winder is a fully programmable 2 stepper motor affair that runs off a pic so it's totally independent of any PC. I still need to assemble the thing which has been on my bench for about 5 years now.

[Steve Sawyer]

Steve, I fixed your user name.

Thanks, Barry - much appreciated!

Had some trouble logging in and figured someone must have fixed it.

[Eric Baack]

How proficient are you with the arduino? I have dabbled a bit with them for work and have thought about using it on a few home projects

[Steve Sawyer]

My next winder is a fully programmable 2 stepper motor affair that runs off a pic

Not my field, so I'm curious - how does an Arduino differ from a PLC other than being a DIY product? Sounds like a great project in any case.

If I'm successful with my project, I'll post some plans/instructions here.

[Steve Sawyer]

How proficient are you with the arduino? I have dabbled a bit with them for work and have thought about using it on a few home projects

Not very - I've only had time to play around with it - made some flashing lights. However I'm a recovering programmer - I was a code slinger as part of my job for 25 years.

[David King]

I really have no idea how the chip was programmed but a bunch of us on the music electronic forum hashed out what we thought it should do and one fellow wrote the code and flashed everyones eprom, designed the circuit board, had them made, made up a BOM at Mouser and sent us all on our way. I ordered the components and soldered my board together and found a couple of used dragon drivers and stepper to go with. I designed my own power supply and put that together with surplus parts off eBay. Ever since I've been trying to decide whether I want my bobbin to spin or I want my bobbin to be stationary while the winder spins. So many interesting ways to skin this cat.
The pic has a bunch of buttons and a small screen that asks you a series of questions and gives you a series of possible choices that you select from. The parameters are bobbin dimensions, wire diameter, traverse screw TPI, wind speed, wind direction, speed ramp up and ramp down, turns-per-layer, turns per layer range, and a turns per layer randomizing function that mimics a hand wound pickup from within the given range.

[Eric Baack]

The arduino uno with a sparkfun "big easy driver" will work well to control a single stepper. If you are running a single stepper motor then you could also go with one of the arduino or other vendor's motor shield. I did a little programming in college but not much. I picked it up well enough to design an arduino based solar pointing device that took the inputs from 6 solar cells and rotated a solar panel to point at the sun for use on high altitude balloons.