I found this on youtube. what an incredible job. [video=youtube;PK3Ku6R2ziI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK3Ku6R2ziI[/video]
I wish I could find that video of the home-made compressed air stringing machine... but this one is excellent.
Prince has a compressed air stringing machine. MP-100. here is the manual: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0nJ2HDELBxzeTR0RW56RHFUUnc/edit not a bad idea. for homemade, at least it solves some of the motor and gearing issues. a compressed piston is linear which is exactly what a tension need. a compressor is also easy to find (a quiet one might not..) but it will be hard to eventually productize it if that's the goal.
There is a third option - neither motors nor compressed air - that might work, but I don't know how feasible it would be: electromagnets. Completely silent, no moving parts.
Very impressive, Very beautiful. Must have taken a lot of effort to design and to create this magnificent machine.
I mean a magnet pulling something directly, like a junkyard magnet pulling scrap iron. No noise, most likely - the pulling force would be governed by the voltage across the electromagnet. Come to think of it, when the magnet de-energizes, wouldn't the energy be almost entirely recycled back into the mains...?
the problem with a magnet is that the field drops off very steeply. once you move a cm or so you get a much weaker/stronger force. this is not good when we need displacement of around 8" for a stringing machine. for a motor this is well controlled as the rotor and the permanent magnet are always at a fixed distance from each other so the force is maximized and stable. yes, and you get a nice catapult on your hand.
I'm thinking along the lines of a coil gun - imagine the "bullet" as the puller head, with the coils switching on in sequence. The moving parts would be retarded by an hydraulic dashpot, I think - no need to put a hole in the side of the house.
amazing homemade machine "in shop" style, (can't do without proper tools & machine and skills of the shop), materials and labour costs may be more than a decent 6 points support and a wise head. but it's one of a kind value can't express in term of money.
i am most impressed by the fact that this thing is so professional looking and nothing is bought from store. the tensioner looks totally awesome as well. it is not only mechanical skill but also electronic skill. i wonder if there is a way to design our own tensioner. the WISE is cheap and all but hardly the best when it comes to quality.
I wonder how much time and material costs this guy used to build such a beautiful work of art.....very nice. Wish I had a machine shop.
[MENTION=108981]Jeroen1278[/MENTION] can you show us how u designed the tensioner? any suggestion on what mechanism we should use? what spec motor did you use? how do you do the force/position feedback/control?
Great job on the machine........how much for one or can you show us how to make one? I think that'll be fun
What i used for my drive system is a steppermotor ,leadball screw spindel and linear ballbearing. these parts are from some old machine's that i had lying around. So i have to see if i can find all the specs of the driver and motor etc. The force measurment is done by a loadcell. And what i used for the "brain" is a arduino board. In simple therms, you set the pullweight and then when de pullweight is achieved it will keep the weight ad the desired tension. When I have some spare time i will posted some pictures from the inside off the machine. Pictures say more words.
I used a steppermotor lead ballscrew spindel and linear ball bearing. all the drive parts are from old machines i had lying around. So i don't have all the specs from these parts. Force measurement is done by a loadcell. The "brain" of the machine is arduino board. When i have some spare time i will upload some drawings and pictures.
When i have some spare time i will post some pictures from the inside of the machine, and try to explain how i did it.
we are starting some brainstorming on a DIY tensioner here: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/126351-PROJECT-DIY-stringing-machine-tensioner my current thinking is to use a DC motor. there will be a slave Arduino board running a PID servo control routine. and the whole thing will be controlled via a android phone interface.