This Arduino-Based Winding Machines Can Automatically Prepare a Bunch of Bobbins

Sewing machines are mysterious machines that utilize dark magic that nobody quite understands in order to stitch fabric. They certainly feel that way, at least; in reality, they are just really clever machines. When the needle pokes through the fabric, it loops one thread through another separate thread and then pulls it back through. The first thread comes from the spool on top of the machine, but the second thread needs to be wound around a special bobbin that fits inside of the sewing machine’s looping mechanism in order to work properly. YouTuber Mr Innovative was apparently tired of winding bobbins, which is why he built an Arduino machine to do the job for him.

You can, of course, wind your own bobbins without a special machine like this. Your sewing machine should have a bobbin winder on the top that you can use to take thread from a standard spool and quickly wrap it around an empty bobbin. This machine, however, is capable of winding several bobbins automatically, one after the other, without the user needing to do anything. That would be very handy if you do a lot of sewing and don’t need to switch thread colors, materials, or sizes very often. If that’s not the case or if you don’t even like sewing at all, you can still enjoy watching how this machine was built.

The machine is controlled by an Arduino Nano board, which is attached via the pin headers to a custom PCB that Mr Innovative designed. That PCB also has a pair of stepper motor drivers and circuitry for distributing power. The frame of the machine was constructed from a combination of CNC-cut parts and aluminum extrusion. Mr Innovative’s table saw technique is a bit questionable, so be sure to learn and follow the proper safety precautions if you replicate this build.

The two stepper motors are used to load new bobbins, position them, and then eject the completed bobbins and push them out of the way. A large geared DC motor spins the current bobbin rapidly, and a special mount keeps the end of the thread in place as the winding is performed. When the bobbins are ejected, the thread is pushed across a hot nichrome wire that burns through the thread — though it isn’t clear if this works with any kind of thread or just synthetic thread like nylon. Finally, a small LCD screen is used to display information about the machine’s parameters and progress.