Building a fishing rod repair station "turn table"

Hello Everyone!

I want to build my own fishing rod repair station.

This will be (I hope) my first out of many projects!
I'd really like to know if you guys and gals out there would like to help me out with my first starting endeavour.

It is basically a workbench with a simple RPM adjustable motor with start/stop/reverse functions controlled by a foot switch that consists of a small motor plus two support beams a few feet apart for supporting the fishing rod blank, with each beam having two ball bearings slightly apart for the rod blank to "sit" on them for a smooth controlled rotation.

The motor would connect to the fishing rod blank either with a small pulley system or with a chuck similar to those on dremel tools to clamp on the rod blank or maybe some other ingenious idea? :slight_smile:

I'd like to have the option of being able to set the RPMs (1~30 RPMs) for continuous autonumous rotation over several hours for applying epoxy coatings on the rods and leaving it to dry and a maximum of around 100 RPM's for wrapping the thread line for the new rod line guides..

So, my question is... What parts would I need to make this happen?
Thanks in advance everyone!

Breezer28:
.... controlled by a foot switch that consists of a small motor plus two support beams a few feet apart for supporting the fishing rod blank...

I cannot picture this foot switch in my head......

however, your post is asking many things and you asked many things you were not aware of.

first. APPLICATION is key. you want to run a motor for a few hours, at low speed.
if you can live with two speeds, get two motors or get a motor and two pulleys for belt drive.
sometimes the simple ansers are better.

you can use a stepper or a DC motor. I believe you will want to use a belt drive no matter which way you choose.

A Stepper has most of it's power at near zero speed, a DC motor has no power near zero speed.
so, you might need to get a gear head DC motor and pulleys to make that work.

as for a stepper, a NEMA 17 is on the small end, but if you are only spinning and there is no load, it should work.

The A4988 driver is very easy to use with an Arduino and you can use a Pot to alter speed.

foot switch :
assuming you want to have a pair of foot switches... one to go left, one to go right ?
hold one down and it ramps up the speed ?
hold the other and it ramps down the speed ?
at zero speed, you beep a buzzer, flash a light or some such ?
push both to stop ?
LED will pulse to represent speed ?

all very easy.

lathe chuck

not sure how many different sizes you have , but you can buy a small lathe WITH CHUCK , not a woodworking lathe without a chuck.

you can buy some pillow block bearings and an ER chuck with a collet set. the ER chuck with long tail would allow you to mount it and add pulleys

if you buy just the chuck, you have to make the bearings and such and will need quite a bit of work to make it work
http://www.aliexpress.com
1028256730

if you want to do it really cheap....
get some iron pipe and a flange. bolt on a piece of wood
get some pieces of wood and drill holes to allow your pipe have a tight fit. these would be the bearings.
bolt or screw a second piece of wood to the face.
spin thw works, while spinning find the center of the second piece of wood and while spinng, drill a small hole
take this off and drill it to be the size of your fishing rod end, or just under.
spin it and sand it to make it a snug fit for your fishing rod.
if you want to clamp it, then cut the wood in half, bolt half on the faceplace and use long screws and the second part as a clamp.

Yeah, sorry, I should've been more specific, I appologize!
Let me firstly explain better...

There is practically very little torque power requirement involved in the application..
There will only be two functions and only one of the functions would work at a time.
Maybe a SPDT On-Off-On toggle/rocker switch would let me accomplish this..

function a)

  • Continuous autonumous rotation at a very slow rpm speed.

This part of the application is only used for applying the epoxy and to keep the rod rotating so the epoxy levels out on it's own and keep rotating until the epoxy fully cures..
I'd need a little potentiometer for setting the desired rpm to accomplish this.

Function b)

  • Foot switch for wrapping new line guides on the rod blank.

This part of the applicaton, putting new line guides on the rod blank is done by wrapping a thin line similar to sewing line around the footpegs of the line guides and is only a mean to speed up the whole wrapping process..

I'm a TIG pipe welder and on my machines I use a foot switch when it's convenient.
On my machines these foot switches work as a potentiometer, the more you press, the more power you get whilst full "throttle" power output is what you previously manually regulated on the machine.

So as far as the foot switch goes on this application, I'd like it to work in a similar fashion.
A potentiometer to adjust my max allowed rpm "on the machine" and the foot pressure switch to let me increase/decrease RPM speed on-the-fly and when releasing the foot switch it would halt the wrapping process.

So thinking about it, I don't actually need the reverse feature..

reverse is not that hard.

you can buy a potentiometer and put a linkage on it to have it rotate.
you can buy a linear potentiometer and have a linkeage and a spring.

many options and I understand that making a device that is similar to other devices you use will make it much easier in the end.

As a self-proclaimed 'noob' I welcome you to the Arduino fold and direct you to my series of YouTube videos for beginners just like you. URL in the signature of this post.

Just reading your post I can see that you are asking many fundamental questions that should be addressed individually (by you) so you don't get into one hell of a frustrating mess! We don't want you put off Arduino-related projects because you tried to do too much in one go.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

[No elephants were harmed in the construction of this post]

Hello Ralph!

I have actually seen a couple of your youtube videos a just a few weeks ago..
Yes, I started by asking first for what parts I'd possibly need because it would let me focus on what I should firstly learn and try to keep the project within a reasonable price by buying the right parts on the first try..

Well, yeah I'm sort of a "noob" to the arduinos part..

Besides being a welder I do lot's of things but I sure like to learn new stuff...
I do lot's of car and mostly motorcycle wiring looms + soldering mods + new plugs + electrical troubleshooting..
I also do have c++ skills that I learnt in college a few years back and I've made several Glovepie scripts for pc games that I used to play with cheap sixaxis gamepads..

Arduinos do seem like the next step over C++ and Glovepie and will also make me refresh C++ a bit..

Although this is relatively easy project to do without arduino I just thought it would be a fun thing to learn and put to practise. It might even look good after it's finished :slight_smile:

Btw, is there a beginners introduction section on the forum? I had a quick look the other day but didn't find one..

@Breezer28, I think you will find it easier to get advice about the Arduino aspects of your project after you have determined the mechanical system and are in a position to describe it for us.

There will be no problem using an Arduino to control an electric motor with a foot switch - or any other type of switch.

From your description of your application I think a low-geared DC motor would be most suitable. I can't see the need for a stepper motor as I don't think you need precise positioning within a single revolution. Also the small jerks caused by the "steps" of a stepper motor might not be desirable. It would be easy to set up a simple optical detector to allow the Arduino to count revolutions and to measure the speed at which it is driving the motor.

In case you want some basic information about stepper motors you could read Stepper Motor Basics

...R

Robin2:
@Breezer28, I think you will find it easier to get advice about the Arduino aspects of your project after you have determined the mechanical system and are in a position to describe it for us.

There will be no problem using an Arduino to control an electric motor with a foot switch - or any other type of switch.

From your description of your application I think a low-geared DC motor would be most suitable. I can't see the need for a stepper motor as I don't think you need precise positioning within a single revolution. Also the small jerks caused by the "steps" of a stepper motor might not be desirable. It would be easy to set up a simple optical detector to allow the Arduino to count revolutions and to measure the speed at which it is driving the motor.

In case you want some basic information about stepper motors you could read Stepper Motor Basics

...R

Several years ago I built a coil winder using a stepper motor, PC and a foot switch. We needed to put 22.5 turns of wire on bobbin for a ferrite pot core inductor. The wire was hand fed onto the bobbin and movement was very smooth, using 1/2 steps for the motor.

The foot switch was necessary to initiate the winding, stop for any reason, mistakes are possible, and to hold the bobbin in position when the turns were complete. The wire had to be soldered to a tab on the bobbin.

I think the OP will need to allow for similar situations.

Paul

Breezer28:
Hello Ralph!
I have actually seen a couple of your youtube videos a just a few weeks ago..

Btw, is there a beginners introduction section on the forum? I had a quick look the other day but didn't find one..

No I don't know of a beginners' section here - that is certainly partly why I created my series of videos, so much easier to show people than tell them - and thanks for dropping by my YouTube channel, I hope you subscribed :slight_smile: as there are new videos every week or thereabouts.

So, no beginners' section but plenty of people willing to help as you have already seen. It's just amazing the (life) experience that members here have, all of which can be applied to electronics projects. And with your practical and C++ experience you will master it very quickly.