This will be the thread tracking the development of our DIY electromagnetic coil winding machine, aka “We wanted to make a pinball machine then realised actuators are expensive so how hard could it really be to make our own actuators and electromagnetic coils in general?”… aka Spoolio for short.

#BallaratHackerspace #ProjectLog #TotallyNotMakingACoilgunOfficer

We started off prototyping the idea using an old Prusa clone as the chassis to easily get some of the moving axis we required, and whipped up a laser cut adapter on the bed to add a rotating (spooling) axis. First we just wanted to see if the stepper motors even had the torque to wind magnet wire off a roll or whether we’d need to start looking at gearboxes etc.