Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a robotic bobbin winder for my Weav3r loom. Previously, at shows, I’ve had a simple motorised mechanism for winding them but it required my attention to wind. After regular suggestions from Martyn Boogaarts about making a bot to do it, I finally pulled my finger out and got on with designing one:
My intention is to ultimately release the BIs for the loom, but it is taking some time to construct the 3D models for it. One of the issues with the loom is that I’ll need to dismantle significant portions of it to find out how I built it 🙂
I mainly model things for my own benefit so should I have a need to rebuild, I can. For this model, I figured I’d actually produce a proper BI PDF and release that and the code for those that wish to have a go at building it. I should note that I have been a little lazy with the BIs and not run any cables. Instead I have inserted the cable ends and colour-coded them. You will need 1x 50cm, 1x 35cm, and 4x 25cm cables – I’ll leave the routing of them to the builder.
This model will probably need an instruction manual, although I’m hopeful that it ought to be relatively clear how it works. The video above shows how the yarn is threaded through but that ought to be obvious. The code has a menu system which also ought to be clear. If there’s enough feedback/demand for operation instructions, I’ll write up a blog article/document to do that.
The code and model are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
The code can be obtained from: http://jander.me.uk/LEGO/resources/Bobbin%20Wind3r.ev3
The BI PDF can be obtained from: http://jander.me.uk/LEGO/resources/Bobbin%20Wind3r.pdf