Hey guys... completely new to Arduino. I've had a few RaspPi's but, just to setup with RetroPi as arcade game consoles, so, really no practical experience beyond flashing an SD card and connecting power and video.
Looking for a bit of guidance, see if easy or hard or impossible to make a pickup winder.
Basically, a winder machine to put copper wire around some magnets to make guitar pickups.
Ideally, I'd like an on/off switch. A potentiometer to adjust speed of motor. A sensor to detect number of rotations. I'd also like a simple 20x4 LCD display showing speed rpms, and current number of rotations.
Very ideally... I'd like to add a 3rd line on the display, showing a set number of rotations, and a small keypad, or +/- button to adjust the number by, and once the current rotations hit that number it automatically stops.
Would this be something an utter newbie could accomplish? I've seen a few DIY's online, some with decent detail, some with very little, and some a little to ghetto to yield consistent results. From what I know of Arduinos, you can get a lot of plugins, addons, shields with various sensors etc... so thinking it may be the way to go.
Any advice?
Beyond spending the next year or two learning the basics... not in a huge rush, but I do have a few guitar projects needing pickups, and thought be nice to try making them.
I saw one, when I Googled plans one led me here however, it wasn't a case of buying shield/boards and plugging them into the Arduino, it had plans for soldering up circuit boards and some code that I'm not sure if ever got fixed.
So, I guess what I'm asking is... can I hop online, buy a few small components to add to an arduino, and which arduino would I need... and make that work? or will I have to do some customer circuit board making because then I may be outta luck.
I can solder, and put together boards. But without a diagram, I'm stumped.
I mostly work with wood and do design work on the PC.... I have a rough knowledge of this stuff, but very much outside my area of experience.
Completely doable. Even for a beginner, IMO. Just don't expect to have it working before Christmas. There's a bit of a learning curve. But the info you'll need shouldn't be difficult to find or figure out.
The more I look the more I find that may work... only thing I'm having issue finding is I guess an odometer.
Something where I can tell it 7500 windings, and then a counter that when hits 7500 shuts it off.
Found stuff for motor speed control, sensor for detecting rpm, etc... found a few things about odometers for bikes in miles/km... which I think is on the right track, but not exactly what I'm after.
Arduino wise... how do you know which ones to use? Nano, Uno, Mega etc... assuming Nano?
There are a couple of projects to do this on Hackaday. You may find that stepper motors would mean you won't need an odometer, just count steps in software.
Any Arduino could do this, Uno or Nano would be fine.
THRobinson:
The more I look the more I find that may work... only thing I'm having issue finding is I guess an odometer.
Something where I can tell it 7500 windings, and then a counter that when hits 7500 shuts it off.
Found stuff for motor speed control, sensor for detecting rpm, etc... found a few things about odometers for bikes in miles/km... which I think is on the right track, but not exactly what I'm after.
Arduino wise... how do you know which ones to use? Nano, Uno, Mega etc... assuming Nano?
I built a coil winder a couple of years ago. I used a Nano, a small keyboard and a 2-line LCD display.
I have not looked at any of the other winders that have been mentioned, but for someone who wants to wind 7500 turns of very fine wire, you have more to worry about than which Arduino to use.
Think about keeping a steady tension on the wire. Think about how to evenly distribute the wire across the width of the coil form. Think about the uneven pull on the fine wire as your coil form turns. It is not a round form as I was using. Think about having to stop and start sometime during the winding process.
Ya... from the DIY vids I saw, they all said expect to waste a lot of wire while you sort out the tension plus having the wire itself come off the spool easily.
From what I understand, early Strat pickups were around 8,000 windings... humbuckers and P90's no idea. Kinda hoped people had 'recipes' online for pickups, like... if you want a '57 Classic, you need this material, this wire, X number windings etc... but not so much of that online. Be a lot of trial and error I guess.
But... unless I know I can make a winder, then not much point researching the rest quite yet.
In addition to the winder, I might buy a Arduino kit as well, because looks like something that once you learn, you can find projects for it.
I have plans for a CNC machine this summer, guts all ready for an Arcade build as well, and would like to build a HiDef audio player for headphones as well. So... learning Arduino stuff makes sense since my projects all seem to be in that direction anwyays.
Ya... and I have a tendancy to let stuff snowball. What will start with an $80 pickup winder, will probably end up being $500 worth of Arduino parts.
The CNC I mentioned started as a $300 desktop kit, and evolved to a 24x36in machine for guitar building.
Research can be great... and can be bad at the same time.
Hopefully Arduino programming isn't too bad... I did some BASIC 25yrs ago for a semester. I know HTML/CSS but not used in years. So I've used programming before, but, I mean the absolute bare minimum amount.
There's a bit of a learning curve. But the info you'll need shouldn't be difficult to find or figure out.