Contraption: Filament winder build

[eggplant]

Don't read too much into any of the dimensions/proportions of these parts, but this picture shows two of my 3"-ish OD custom wound CF tubes with the outer surface turned down, a coupler, and a FG nosecone made to fit in the tubes. Composites are fun! Still a lot left to do before a rocket made from these parts flies.

 

[nergen]

Hi,
First of all, great job and thank you for sharing all this info!
I amazed of all the work you've done and inspired by your x-winder to create a similar one.

Went through all the thread several times and started adjusting your CAD design to all the components that I have (like frame tubes and so on)
I've noticed that you have only one assembly in your CAD design for a CF tow, although you have several different mounts for a tape winding, heat gun and so on.
I've checked all your videos trying to see your current setups in details, but unfortunately you don't have all the footages of different setups.
Also I've noticed that you've made several changes that are not reflected in your CAD design, like new "far roller" that you mentioned in the thread.
I'm not sure if you are planning to update your CAD designs in nearest future, so if it's possible, can you, please, film all your setups(CF tow, heat gun, tape) so I can get a better understanding how it works?
I hope it's not too much to ask.

Also, I'm quite new to filament winding and don't have a lot of experience with CF tow and resin.
I've seen you mentioned what kind of CF tow you use earlier.
Do you think you can share more details on that?
Maybe you can give a more specific suggestions on what combination of CF tow + resin + shrink tape worked best for you?
If you can share brand names and products that will be good enough.
Links where you got them will be even better(not sure if it is against forum rules though)
Once again, thank you so much for sharing!

 

[OzHybrid]

Don't read too much into any of the dimensions/proportions of these parts, but this picture shows two of my 3"-ish OD custom wound CF tubes with the outer surface turned down, a coupler, and a FG nosecone made to fit in the tubes. Composites are fun! Still a lot left to do before a rocket made from these parts flies.

View attachment 596367

Why do you have a dead body outline on the floor..........?

 

[eggplant]

Hi,
First of all, great job and thank you for sharing all this info!
I amazed of all the work you've done and inspired by your x-winder to create a similar one.

Went through all the thread several times and started adjusting your CAD design to all the components that I have (like frame tubes and so on)
I've noticed that you have only one assembly in your CAD design for a CF tow, although you have several different mounts for a tape winding, heat gun and so on.
I've checked all your videos trying to see your current setups in details, but unfortunately you don't have all the footages of different setups.
Also I've noticed that you've made several changes that are not reflected in your CAD design, like new "far roller" that you mentioned in the thread.
I'm not sure if you are planning to update your CAD designs in nearest future, so if it's possible, can you, please, film all your setups(CF tow, heat gun, tape) so I can get a better understanding how it works?
I hope it's not too much to ask.

Also, I'm quite new to filament winding and don't have a lot of experience with CF tow and resin.
I've seen you mentioned what kind of CF tow you use earlier.
Do you think you can share more details on that?
Maybe you can give a more specific suggestions on what combination of CF tow + resin + shrink tape worked best for you?
If you can share brand names and products that will be good enough.
Links where you got them will be even better(not sure if it is against forum rules though)
Once again, thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks! Yeah, I admittedly have been a bit sloppy with the CAD as I have made changes to the machine. I really should revisit it at some point to clean up all of the old parts. I also intend to type up a much more detailed "manual" on how to assemble and use the machine, and some of tuning tips I've found for making it work with your resin/tow. For now, I'll say that you definitely want to use 12-24k tow (anything narrower would take forever to wind a complete tube). Beyond that, I haven't found the exact type/brand to be particularly important, as long as you are just looking to wind a part successfully and don't need it to be super optimized. For resin, I've always used Max HTE epoxy, because it was a good balance of temperature resistance (important for motor cases), pot life (so I can make large parts), and price. It is pretty viscous, so something else might actually work better and let you wind faster. For heat shrink tape, I use Dunstone 220R, 1" wide. It is 20% shrink, so it squeezes a lot of resin out. I wind it on with a 0.25" stepover, resulting in the tube being covered in 4 uniform layers. In the future I might step that up to 8 layers with a 0.125" stepover, but that would use twice the tape and I'm satisfied with my current results.

 

[eggplant]

I should really make a separate thread for this rocket, but the project built around a tube wound on the machine is progressing well. These pictures show the carbon fiber fins with thin stainless steel caps on their leading edges after being bonded onto the tube, in the process of being filleted. The rocket is basically just a slightly extended GEM3 motor case with fins glued onto it, a short recovery tube that is glued on after motor assembly to simplify the process, and a nosecone with avionics in it. It looks almost ready to go fast!

It also weighs just a hair over 2 lb, which is amazing for the motor case and complete fin can of a 3" M rocket.

 

[OzHybrid]

Will this be a FAR launch? SS edged fins wouldn't be knowingly permitted under the TRA use of metals policy, unfortunately.

 

[eggplant]

Will this be a FAR launch? SS edged fins wouldn't be knowingly permitted under the TRA use of metals policy, unfortunately.

Yup, most of the fun stuff is happening at FAR these days in my opinion!

 

[OzHybrid]

Just make sure you have the rocket in shade. In case it has to sit on the pad for 2 hours, as happened to the hair finned min dia. Cool epoxy is a lot stronger than hot epoxy......

 

[eggplant]

I'm going to launch the rocket I posted about above soon, and will fill everyone in when that happens. To kill time before then, I wound another tube and edited together some footage of the process. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone here who might have been thinking about building their own filament winder!

 

[eggplant]

For details about the results of the launch, check out this thread! Posting a link so this thread can get back on topic about the winder itself.

 

[Samuel Hedin]

Hi, im currently thinking about building a winder and I am impressed with the design. I am i Europe and having a difficult time finding the correct bearings and pulleys and all those parts by looking in the assembly so i am wondering if you could point me in the right direction where you bought those parts or a partslist.

A follow up question would be if a lot would change software wise if i bought these gears and belts
GT2 14 Tooth Pulley - https://openbuildspartstore.com/gt2-2m-timing-pulley-14-tooth/
GT2 Timing Belt- https://openbuildspartstore.com/gt2-2m-timing-belt-by-the-foot/
Then finding appropriate bearings to make everything work together

 

[eggplant]

Hi, im currently thinking about building a winder and I am impressed with the design. I am i Europe and having a difficult time finding the correct bearings and pulleys and all those parts by looking in the assembly so i am wondering if you could point me in the right direction where you bought those parts or a partslist.

A follow up question would be if a lot would change software wise if i bought these gears and belts
GT2 14 Tooth Pulley - https://openbuildspartstore.com/gt2-2m-timing-pulley-14-tooth/
GT2 Timing Belt- https://openbuildspartstore.com/gt2-2m-timing-belt-by-the-foot/
Then finding appropriate bearings to make everything work together

Sweet! Would love to see more hobbyists build winders of any design. I don't have a unified BOM put together yet, but it is on my todo list. For now, here's the bearings and pulleys on McMaster so you can see the specs:
Pulleys
Bearings

If you use different belts/pulleys, you will likely need to change the steps/mm used by marlin. It should work just fine otherwise!