Hand Tool for Winding Toroid Cores

The only hand tool I've ever seen was made from a piece of dowel rod. The ends of the dowel are notched, and the notches are rounded so that wire wrapped from end to end don't have any sharp bends in them. then you load the tool with about 10 to 25 % more wire than you expect to need, and use it like a needle to make the turns by passing it through the hole. A small rubber band is handy to put around the tool if you need a break. Let the tool's weight keep the windings taught. A couple pieces of soft foam and a small drill press vise will hold one edge, while you work on the rest of the core. Just don't over tighten it and damage any wire, or crack the core.

I suggest you tend toward pot-cores and E-cores, they are much easier to wind.

Rene

The word is "shuttle."

Well, I once used a stick. Put notches in the ends and loop the wire around it longways. Worked a treat, albeit a little time- consuming. The technical term for the modified stick is "shuttle".

Good Luck! Rich

Yabut it landed the other day. I heard its "Boom Boom" as it passed overhead. ;-)

I used a small shuttle made for repairing fishing nets, it has an area near each end made to wind the string/wire around. Worked well! Mike

Yes, your hand, if it's less than maybe 25-30 turns. Otherwise, do as others suggest and make a stick with slots in each end (a shuttle) that you load up with wire and weave to and fro.

For finer wires the shuttle needs to be well sanded then polished up with some shellac and wax, otherwise the wire tends to jag on any rough edges.

...as well as unwind for reworking.

For that amount of work, you might as well build one of these:

Cheers! Rich

Yes, they are nice machines, saw one in use a few years ago, but honestly! My shuttle took about 45 mins, tops, to make.

I dunno how much the Gorman machines cost, but I'll wager the cheapest would be 1000's of times more pricey than the 25c of wood and shellac that I used. Of course, if I had paid myself top lawyerin or tooth doctorin rates of $500 per hour things would be a little different.

Yep. Machines are dandy, and expensive. We had one of those at OmniComp/GenRad around 1980. Don't know what it cost, but it sure was nice.

I'd love to have one of those PCB "engraving" machines for quick G-jobs... why doesn't someone give me one for my birthday ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

IIRC, there's a few websites that have shop-made ones, usually an old Roland X-Y plotter with a small motor and endmill in place of the pen.

Bit of a mission, but they are a LOT cheaper than the real ones. Depends on the value of your time, I guess.

Barry

I haven't heard of a shuttle before...The descriptions were interesting to read. Thanks for the feedback. Now I have to compare....

My Toroid Winder Gizmo... I created a 5" diameter plastic O ring with an outside U channel profile.

Hand control is required for ring rotation and maintaining wire tension.

Worked ok but it's tricky guiding the wire off the ring.. Did

Maybe I reinvented the wheel. :)

Basically, you reproduced the trick / method those fancy toroid winding machines use. Either you had your own machine shop or paid one to make that U-shaped O-ring.

The wood shuttle as has been mentioned, is good. For really small diameter toroids, you can make a different shuttle: two concentric pieces of brass tubing from the hobby store. You wind the wire onto the outer brass tube first. Then you pass the assembly through the toroid like a needle, just as was described for the dowel shuttle. The inner brass tube acts as an axle when you need to unroll more wire.

The advantage is that you can make a smaller diameter shuttle that way than you can with wood. The dowel shuttle is easier to use when the diameter of the toroid is big enough.

Ed

channel

twisted

wire

Basically, you reproduced the trick / method those fancy toroid winding machines use. Either you had your own machine shop or paid one to make that U-shaped O-ring. .

-------------- In my original posting, I did mention I got my inspiration from a video of a toroid winding machine. I did the CAD drawings for the ring and paid a shop $20.00CAD to cut the plastic. D

--------------

I must be dense; i cannot visualize that scheme. The smaller tube seems patently unnecessary, and you do not mention if the wire is wound around the diameter of the tube or end-to-end like a shuttle. A thin and not-too-wide long piece of metal (for strength) with broad U-shaped notches on the ends for the wire would seem to be useable for fairly small toroids. For dinky toroids, one is reduced to "by hand" or use a sewing needle.

I blame my description - not a case of you being dense.

Let's see if I can clarify.

The brass tubing I'm talking about is readily available in various real small diameters at the hobby store. You can easily cut it to the lengths you need, say 4" outer tube and 5" for the inner tube, with a dremel cutoff wheel.

Take a hollow tube, use it like a coil form, and wind a coil on it that contains the amount of wire you need on your toroid. The radius of these windings is the radius of the tube, not its length. The diameter of that tube is small - say about the same as a soda straw or less.

Take a second hollow tube, with a smaller outside diameter than the inside diameter of the first tube. Insert it in the tube that has the wire wrapped on it. Make it a little bit longer, say 1/2" - it will serve as the axel about which the first tube can rotate freely.

That second tube *is* unnecessary, strictly speaking. But it makes it easier to pull a length of wire off for additional turns on the toroid.

It is use with the dinky toroids where the tool outshines the sewing needle or winding by hand.

Ed