Tag: e-spinner

In The Shop with The Man

Edgar is feeling better, and I am much relieved.
We haven’t gotten the toxicology results back yet from Idaho, but the bloodwork that was done locally indicated he had a high phosphorus level and low calcium. Not sure what exactly would set up that sort of situation.

With Edgar back on his feet, I pressed ahead this weekend with hoof trimming and CDT boosters. Nice to get that all finished up. Shearing is ongoing- with everyone in different stages of crazy haircuts 🙂

And we were able to get back into the shop to work on the e-spinner!

The box that will house the components is coming together

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Still have to shape the front and rear panels to create the equivalent of maidens to hold the flyer. Hope to sort that out today.

Here is how the control panel will sit in one of the side pieces of the box (on/off switch, speed control dial, direction switch and little red and green led lights to indicate direction of spin) 

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Neato frito, eh? Yeah, The Man is pretty good with this kind of stuff 🙂

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the round hole in the back side is where the power cord will go.

And here is a little video of testing the rpm range on the largest whorl of the flyer

(Pretty sure the bobbin clatter at the higher speed will resolve with a little oil.)

We’re right on track with having an operating range on the flyer of about 450-1200 RPM. That should cover everything that I usually spin. And if a need ever emerged to go higher, we could use the next smaller whorl.

For reference, if you’re operating at a ratio of 8:1 and treadling once per second, your flyer is doing about 480 RPM.  So assuming 60 treadles a minute rate, the espinner is designed to have an range equivalent to ratios from 7.5:1 to 20:1

E-spinner Progress

I think we’re almost done gathering all the parts and pieces required for the e-spinner project-

We’ve got the motor-

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And the motor controller-

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The man has wired those guys up and done some basic operational testing

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And just yesterday the on/off, forward/reverse push-button switches and the dial for speed adjustment arrived.

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I can’t wait to start putting all the bits together and build the box it will be mounted in!

Spin Mod

Hey hey hey- Electric Spinner motor and controller are on their way.
Should be here tomorrow, and then we can start figuring out how this thingee is going to work.

In the meantime, I’ll share a mod I’ve made to the Kromski Sonata flyer that we’re going to be using for the e-spinner project.

Right now this flyer is on my lateral treadle wheel that The Man built for me a few years ago.
It works well, and is very sturdy, but I’ve always found the hooks kind of annoying.

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I didn’t realize when I selected this flyer that the hooks pivot.

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I think that it must be to give you a little more lateral flexibility in how the yarn winds on. It’s fine for heavier yarns, but with finer singles I find that I can’t get a good even application of yarn on the bobbin. I get little hills, with valleys in-between.

Amazingly, I found that the hooks pull easily from the flyer arms, so I didn’t have to fuss at all over the removal. Nice.

And I have fitted on of the arms with a makeshift sliding yarn guide.

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Pretty simple fix. And working well so far!

Bring on the Spring

February, despite it’s measly 28 days, feels like the longest month of the year.

So I’ve taken things into my own hands and cooked up a little bit of spring to get me through-

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From top to bottom: Bloom, Sunshine, and Sprout. 🙂
And here they are all carded up

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That will be fun to blend and spin. Maybe a some more “Faux-berball” type yarn?

In other news, The Man has signed on to help me build an electric spinner! I’m super excited, and plan to share updates on our progress over the next weeks/months. Design is still in development, but I hope to incorporate adjustable maidens to accommodate different flyers.

And I also wanted to share this awesome little video from HansenCrafts, the folks who make the Mini-Spinner.