Q&D coil winder

[Robert Darrah]

Hi,

When I needed to wind a coil I never wanted to stop what I was doing and run down to the hardware store and get parts to make a winder, but finally I was at the store and bought some parts on the fly.

I wanted something that would be quick and easy to throw together so I used common pipe fittings. I made it so it's easy to switch a couple of fitting so it can be used as a hand winder or with a drill.

I put it together in around an hour and man, I'm really glad I did. It's so much easier than wrapping by hand. I'll post some pics below.

This winder is for the 3 1/4" spools with the 3/4" hole. Obviously you want to wind your spool before packing the welding rods in. Not that I know anybody that did otherwise.

Robert

[Branch Gordon]

Great man! I'll be building one of those before I move on to a bigger system. Thanks for all the notes!

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Branch,

I forgot to mention to leave a little extra room between the wood and the spool to put the tail of the wire when you're winding the coil. I took the extra wire from the beginning of the wind and brought it up and over the rim of the spool and taped it to the bottom of the spool so it wouldn't flop around. So it's taped to the bottom of the spool for the winding and you need a little extra room so it doesn't rub on the wooden frame. I hope that makes sense.

Robert

[Mike Swanson]

Yes thanks very much for posting all the details too!

[Robert Darrah]

Hi,

I wanted to litz the coil for my 5 filar but didn't want to go out to the park in the weather and stretch the wires out to do it, so I made a Q&D litzer to go with the coil winder.



The coil was already wound and had the core in it, so I first punched out the rods. Then I made the wood holder with a 3/8" x 6" pipe nipple to hold the coil. I wanted to have tension on the coil so it wouldn't spin loosely on the shaft while I was spinning the coil with the drill, so I used a pipe flange screwed to the wood and screwed the nipple into it so it would be stationary. I put a couple of rows of electrical tape on the nipple until I had the tension where I wanted it; so the coil would only spin on the shaft when I was turning the coil winder. The tension actually increased druing the winding as the electrical tape on the shaft started to smear around, but no big deal.

I used another 3/8" x 6" nipple bushed down to a 1/4" x 2" nipple (which fits in a 1/2" drill chuck when the threads are ground down a little) to turn the coil holder. I wanted the 1/4" nipple to be the right height so that the drill would be sitting steadily on the floor by itself when I wasn't using it. So I put a pilot bit in the drill and set it on the floor to drill the hole for the shaft so it was the right height. I was quite happy I did this, as I let go of the drill many many times while litzing and didn't have any trouble with the drill falling over.

I took my time with the litzing so I could get the twists nice and even for the whole length of the wire. What I found worked well was I would turn the coil winder 1 full turn with my right hand and hold it there, and with my left I would turn the litzer the same number of turns each time with the drill. So I would wind the coil 1 revolution to wind up the part of the wire I had just litzed, and then put in maybe 5 revolutions with the drill to litz the next section of wire, and then wind another revolution on the coil winder and so on. As the coil filled up it would take up more wire, so I'd occasionally add another twist with the drill, so I was at around 8 revolutions by the end. I was going slow and neat, but with a little practice could probably just keep turning the coil winder slowly with one hand and litzing with the drill with the other.

The nice thing about doing it this way is it's very easy to get all the twists even. When you're twisting a long bunch of wires with a drill it will be tight near the drill and looser near the middle, and then you have to worry about overtightening the ends and shorting the wires as you're trying to get the middle section tight.

The only downside I saw was you have to already have your wires on another spool so the litzer can hold it. But you can quickly wind the wires on an extra spool with the coil winder and then pop that spool in the litzer and away you go.

Robert