Need welding wire winder plans

[ventureline]

Does anybody out there is welder land have plans for a wire winder. Thought I'd buy drums of weld wire and wind it down to 10 & 20 lb spools, as I found a couple of 48' trailers filled with empty plastic spools.

Trying to restructure my company into something a little more simpler.
Already restructured into building custom remotes and miles of control cable.
More money and alot less hassle from doing service calls and warranty work.

[moody]

you mean those things at homedepot that count the feet of wire you take and rolls it into a spool?

just go there and take a look at it

theres your plans

thats what i do when im gunna build somthing
look for photos of it then try to make it better

[ventureline]

I've got one of those already for welding cable. Too slow and bulky

[Sberry]

I am not sure how I would feel about buying rewound wire. I quit using the L56 for a while on 10# spools as the winding wasnt very good, I am sure it has been changes, that was several years ago. I used some Israeli stuff that worked well, then went to Century as it was about 10$ less, now been using Weld-it in my little machine, its not a lot anymore, but I still use it on occasion.

[Rocky D]

I had to do that very thing about 20 years ago...we got drums of ER70S-6 wire that had to be put on 10" spools....the setup was real simple...a 5 or 6" channel with a axel for the spool, and a drill motor to turn the small spool, and I think we had a wire straightener on it too...wish I could remember the details for you,but it's not rocket science.

[Roger]

I've heard of people using simple set up on lathe. I would want spring loaded clutch system about like reel drag on welder if using lathe to wind spools. Can run wire through scotch brite pad while winding on reel to remove flash rust.

[MBDiagman]

If your idea is to repackage and resell then, of course, number of turns won't matter. What will matter is weight.

If you will be doing this on a large scale then what you would need would be the 10# spool to sit on an apparatus with a load cell so that you can know when you have 10# on the spool. It would be relatively easy to use a small programmable controller to run the motor and watch the scale.

Also so that you don't have spools that won't fee correctly for your customers as Sberry has dealt with, you need something to move the wire back and forth across the spool as it winds. This would be like a bait casting fishing reel.

If you were to just hook a motor up to a spool and start winding, you might end up with a reel that would give lots of trouble while unwinding and your market would dry up fast.

Rocky, did your drill motor wound reels unwind without any trouble?

Good luck,
Doc

[Rocky D]

Thanks Doc for reminding me...yeah the winds were real critical as far as the tension put on the wire while winding...as I remember it was not as easy as it looks. You need some kind of tension control as well as wire placement control. We were doing it for our own use, so it wasn't refined, like a machine desined for the job would be. As I remember, the curl of the wire in the drum, was a real problem...when you wind it on a spool the curl would reverse and bind up. We didn't have the fixture that mounts on the drum, that allows it to dispense freely into a feeder. Try a garden hose...pull it all off the wind up reel, and coil it up in front of it, then try to reel the hose back on the reel it don't work.
You see, since we were doiing it for ourselves, it didn't matter how much wire we got on the spool, but if you're doing it for resale, you better get the right equipment to do it.

[TRG-42]

Hi Ventureline

It's a painfully slow process ( especially .023 and .035 wire...more linear feet per lb ) to wind wire onto small spools if you use a home grown winder. Seen many people try to do it unsucessfully . If you want to make # you need to do it very efficiently with a real wire spooling machine

The reason for this is contrary to popular belief "bulk" wire ( especially the domestic stuff like National Standard and L-56 / L-50 ) is actually more expensive per lb than spooled product ! Its all supply / demand . This is especially true where you live . When you start looking at drum products its even more expensive than bulk reels because of the "non flip ...minimal cast and helix winding that the apply to these products for use in automated applications

Real spooling machines can be found on the used market. National standard had many locations ( Check with Praxair in Regina ..don't think they are doing it anymore and might sill have the equipment ) where they wound bulk bobbins onto spools.

The industry standard winders are the Gimax winders

http://www.gimax.com/maineng.html

It is not easy to to wind small diameter MIG without payoff problems . The cost of domestic wire on spools is lower compared to bulk in Western Canada, not to mentional all the competition of offshore spooled wire so you have to be able to do this where its cost effective and that means winding it ( defect free ) at lighning speeds. You will be lucky to get a home grown winder to wind faster than 10 ft / sec ( about 7000ipm wfs ) Real winders have line speeds 10 times this


Good luck

[ventureline]

I think it's cheaper to buy "ready to sell" wire off shore, than purchase a rewinder here. I think I'll keep to remotes and control cables for the time being.

Thanks for the assistance!