DIY Line Winder Design & Planning

[Mpyeti]

In the spirit of just wanting to be able to do it myself (time, money, etc) ive started working on a little reel station at home.

I have been doing some R&D on a DIY reel spooler with a focus on line tension/variable control of tension (tension wheel as opposed to locking down spool). in the end it's been a combo of DIY and integration of existing tools (there are just some things you aren't going to get perfect if you're not an engineer/have access to a full CNC workshop)

Ive looked over a couple different designs from companies already putting these rigs out there - consensus is they're expensive; everyone does it a little differently; even the higher end rigs have components that wear down/need replacing. i also believe linewinder rigs at most shops aren't sufficient - they primarily count line for the purpose of sales, and a lot aren't designed for heavier lines/loads and offshore fishing. needed a rig that could handle all sizes of spin reels and didn't have access to create mandrels/etc (this would be next steps..) so initial design relies on compression of the spool in order to hold. also was on a budget so being able to leverage my drill as the power source also went into the design but eventually will replace w/ ac gear motor.

Currently the rig is still in a prototype phase, but current specs are as followed:

- supports spinning reels (size 1000-30000)
- conventional (up to 130) *Work in progess; priority was spin reels for rec tuna)
- line leveling/line counting
- drag tension control (up to 10lbs; pe line 6)
- drill powered


Now, i've left room for improving the rig - further building it out to include a mounting system for the conventional reel seat (will be adding the IK ver. 700 to support this). Another future addition will be to the line tensioning portion to bump up the total pressure (20+lbs pe 12+) (ik ver. 500). Lastly id like to work in a potential motor with a speed control dial to drive the line (finally got one picked out - oriental motor 12.5 gear ratio 90w speed contorl)

line spool holder & Line tensioner (Uoya X Studio Ocean IK ver. 300):





Reel spool holder:



additional tools:

Bouz drag checker (up to 30lb):



levelwind:



full setup:





finished product:



hoping to gather any feedback folks might have and happy to answer any questions as well.

Thank you

[Gobi King]

Woa
Piece of art

[alantani]

for conventional reels, i go up to 130 pound braid and 25 pounds of tension coming off the bulk spool.  the motor is 1/3rd hp.  when you build yours, consider a 1/2 hp motor. 

[Lunker Larry]

Wow. That's not your normal slap something together project. Well done!

[Crow]

very nicely done!

[Keta]

Wow.

[oldmanjoe]

That looks like a nice set up .  The drag wheel looks like it has a rubber band bottom to help grip the line ?   I wonder how much drag you can pull with out the line slipping on the drag wheel , some braids slip easily due to coating .      I ask that because of the diameter of the wheel .   Are you  also putting drag on the mother spool , to help overall drag ? 

 

[jurelometer]

I can see that you used some off-the-shelf linear motion parts for the winding assembly, but I would like to understand the actual parts you used for the rotating components.

If you want to fill conventional reels, you might have a design challenge with that winding assembly due to the size and clearances.

My only advice at this point is safety related: whatever you use for a drive, it must be controlled by an auto shutoff switch of some sort.  Especially with a stronger motor and higher drag setting. Your shirt sleeve, a finger, your cat's tail, all sorts of stuff, can get sucked into the reel spool  or tensioning mechanism with the line.  You need a control switch that stops the rotation when you let go of it.  A spring loaded speed control pedal is a popular choice, because it leaves both hands free.

Also, a tensioning devise of this sort is more likely to catch and tangle something when turning than a spool based device like a Bees Knees.  Depending on where it is used and your appetite for risk, a shield over this device might be worthwhile.  I think that this style of tensioning device is better suited for hand winding, which is a much lower risk.

As I am sure that you know, any motorized rotating tool needs to be treated with respect.  Hanging a half horsepower motor on one of these gizmos increases the danger significantly. Ensuring that nothing can be pulled off of its mounts is a safety consideration as well. 

Thanks for sharing.  Good luck, and keep us posted!

-J

[Midway Tommy]

Nice looking adaptation and setup. I'd like to see it in action on spinning reel spool, though.

Personally, I prefer the line to go onto a spinning reel spool the same way it will come off and go back on, not sideways to the spool. If I lined my spools that way I would have to let out all of the line and then reel it back in before I ever actually fished it just to make sure the line rotations overlapped each other correctly according to the spool oscillation.

[oc1]

Nice looking adaptation and setup. I'd like to see it in action on spinning reel spool, though.

Personally, I prefer the line to go onto a spinning reel spool the same way it will come off and go back on, not sideways to the spool. If I lined my spools that way I would have to let out all of the line and then reel it back in before I ever actually fished it just to make sure the line rotations overlapped each other correctly according to the spool oscillation.

The twist will be different too.

[Mpyeti]

I appreciate all the responses!!



to try and address a few questions:

for conventional reels, i go up to 130 pound braid and 25 pounds of tension coming off the bulk spool.  the motor is 1/3rd hp.  when you build yours, consider a 1/2 hp motor. 

Appreciate the head's up - this is the motor i've eyeing up as a future enhancement

https://catalog.orientalmotor.com/item/us2-series-ac-speed-control-motors/90w-us2-speed-control-motors/scm590ua-12-5-us2d90-ua-cc

i'm less familiar with specs on these, but the torque seems adequate. i would want to ask how this looks given that it's rating appears to say 1/8hp..

as well once i get a chance to work on this again, i'll integrate components for the conventionals but ultimately it will be a two part system in that both conventional and spinning reels are going to have their own independent setups

That looks like a nice set up .  The drag wheel looks like it has a rubber band bottom to help grip the line ?  I wonder how much drag you can pull with out the line slipping on the drag wheel , some braids slip easily due to coating .      I ask that because of the diameter of the wheel .  Are you  also putting drag on the mother spool , to help overall drag ? 

 

i will post the schematic later on, but yes there is a rubber gasket lining the drag wheel, to both grip and prevent line damage; the wheel can pull up to either 12 or 14 lb (I don't recall but will also check on that) very consistently with no deviation in pressure/skipping. this drag wheel supports up to PE 6 line,  there is a larger model that supports up to PE 15 and can steadily apply i think either 25 or 30lbs (will also check this too).

the mother spool is tensioned, but not much - the collars have springs but it's more so to just keep the line steady and taught; the main tension is coming from the point of which the line is leaving the drag wheel.  Traditional methods of applying drag pressure tend to either come from manual intervention which can damage the line if it gets too hot, etc., or the spool holder itself applies force (either via a magnet or some other means).  this also has it's own issues and so thought is to mitigate any issues possible.

I can see that you used some off-the-shelf linear motion parts for the winding assembly, but I would like to understand the actual parts you used for the rotating components.

If you want to fill conventional reels, you might have a design challenge with that winding assembly due to the size and clearances.

My only advice at this point is safety related: whatever you use for a drive, it must be controlled by an auto shutoff switch of some sort.  Especially with a stronger motor and higher drag setting. Your shirt sleeve, a finger, your cat's tail, all sorts of stuff, can get sucked into the reel spool  or tensioning mechanism with the line.  You need a control switch that stops the rotation when you let go of it.  A spring loaded speed control pedal is a popular choice, because it leaves both hands free.

Also, a tensioning devise of this sort is more likely to catch and tangle something when turning than a spool based device like a Bees Knees.  Depending on where it is used and your appetite for risk, a shield over this device might be worthwhile.  I think that this style of tensioning device is better suited for hand winding, which is a much lower risk.

As I am sure that you know, any motorized rotating tool needs to be treated with respect.  Hanging a half horsepower motor on one of these gizmos increases the danger significantly. Ensuring that nothing can be pulled off of its mounts is a safety consideration as well. 

Thanks for sharing.  Good luck, and keep us posted!

-J

so the linear table was meant to be a temporary design with the thought i could use it for other purposes once i add to the current rig, but the parts i used were rather simple (for as fancy as it might look it's rather rudimentary).  i used self-aligning pillow block bearings to support bolts that hold lathe face plates and the linear table sandwiches it all together. the future design will look a little different, where it will connect to a mandrel that will go though the spool in the future (driven by the motor, thus no longer needing the table) *pics to follow, just don't have access currently.

and currently the power is just my ryobi drill so once i take my finger off the trigger thats it, but agreed - safety first and appreciate the insight.

Nice looking adaptation and setup. I'd like to see it in action on spinning reel spool, though.

Personally, I prefer the line to go onto a spinning reel spool the same way it will come off and go back on, not sideways to the spool. If I lined my spools that way I would have to let out all of the line and then reel it back in before I ever actually fished it just to make sure the line rotations overlapped each other correctly according to the spool oscillation.

i will try and get a video up, but was running into file size issues earlier. i may be biased on this lol but it seems to run smooth. regarding the orientation of the spool, it is something i want to look into more because from what i've been gathering is the spool orentation being seen as referenced in those pictures for spin, but for conventional it would be the opposite, see here:

[jurelometer]

Appreciate the head's up - this is the motor i've eyeing up as a future enhancement

https://catalog.orientalmotor.com/item/us2-series-ac-speed-control-motors/90w-us2-speed-control-motors/scm590ua-12-5-us2d90-ua-cc

i'm less familiar with specs on these, but the torque seems adequate. i would want to ask how this looks given that it's rating appears to say 1/8hp..

The issue with AC motors is thst they tend to lose torque at lower RPMs.  The specs for the motor listed show a 40% loss, which means that you would need a much more powerful AC  motor than a DC motor with the same rating.

In terms of motor size:  You are right that torque is the key attribute.  A less powerful motor with reduction gearing will provide more torque.  I am betting that the setup Alan is using does not have reduction gearing.  Combined with an AC motor that is inefficient at lower RPMs, and you end up needing a much larger HP rating with his setup.  But his can run fast and does not require a DC power supply.  I have seen Alan's winder, and it is quite a beast. It is what he needs for his situation, but not sure something I would prefer to keep around for my  occasional use.

Remember that electric reels do just fine with a fairly small motor.  You just have to accept lower max RPMs from reduction gearing if  you use a less powerful motor.  It will just take a little bit longer to fill the spool.

The torque required will be the resistance load you want for the fill, adjusted for the spool radius, and adjusted again for the gear ratio if you are winding onto the reel and not a spool. Low gear on two speeds is your friend here if you are not in a hurry.

The general rule of thumb  to get longevity out of an electric motor is to ensure that your continuous running load stays under 50% of max torque.

Oh, one other note:  DC motors are an often more friendly about running in reverse, which might help a design that supports  unwinding for line cleaning or replacement and working with both left and right hand wind reels.

When I was thinking about building a home-use line winder, 12 and 24v DC reduction gear motors looked pretty appealing. These will require a pretty beefy power supply to connect to AC.  But no firsthand results to share. I got lazy, and moved on to other projects 

Traditional methods of applying drag pressure tend to either come from manual intervention which can damage the line if it gets too hot, etc.

I read the description on the web site for that tensioner mentioning heat damage, and like most  fishing products, I think there is a bit of misinformation sprinkled in.  Protection from heat damage to the plastic in fishing line is often touted as a feature of rod guides  and other line related products. In reality, the short term safe operating temperature for UHMWPE plastic (in braided line) is 250F, and you have to get quite a bit hotter than that to permanently affect the molecular structure.

Getting the fibers very hot will decrease the amount of load it takes to exceed the elasticity limit, causing the fibers to elongate and losing some of their strength due to decreased diameter.  But you can do the do same thing by loading the spool too tightly at lower temperatures.  Same thing with nylon monofilament, but at requiring even higher temperatures.  Abrasion from friction can be  an actual issue, but this is a mechanical phenomena and not a heat based transition of the plastics molecular structure.

These braid fibers have some properties that are worth understanding.  I have covered this in  some other threads, so I will  skip the details, but the keys are that there is little elasticity along the length of the fibers, so storing the line under higher load leads to a type of plastic deformation over time known as creep, which decrease fiber diameter, weakening the line.  The second key is that the fibers are actually quite brittle and not that that strong when loaded against the cross section.  The difference in mechanicals properties along vs across the fibers is quite dramatic.  Anything that bends, kinks or provides compressive loads is not good for them.

This leads to the conclusion that the best spool fill is not the one under the highest possible load.  It is the one under the lightest load that does not allow the line to dig at your preferred drag settings.  Ever wonder why braid from the factory is not loaded tight on the spool?  I reckon it is to preserve its  strength.

For folk without a tensioning mechanism, avoiding friction on the line is highly advisable to avoid mechanical damage to the line. If you need to apply manual pressure with a chunk of leather or something, better against the spool lip or wall than  against the line.

Any decent tension device on spool holder is unlikely to generate enough heat to damage the line.  So these are also options for constructing a line winder in addition to the impressive looking device selected by the OP.

As a caveat, I am not an expert on this topic, but it is well covered in the scientific literature.  There was a lot of research on using gelspun polyethylene fibers for sutures in surgery, so lots of good info out there.

-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

Interesting, and thank you for sharing.

Tommy is right about spinning reels benefiting from having line wound on the way it'll leave. I see the Stella spool in the pic. I remember the literature that comes with the new Stella mentions that filling the spool should only be done by cranking the handle. They put a lot of thought into line lay, and winding line on with the spool removed from the reel negates that.

I hesitate to say this because I don't ever want to discourage innovation or use someone else's thread to talk about how great I think my ideas are. It's hard to do that and not come across as, well, lame. But I really think my overly simple setup using a butchered spinner spool to provide the drag is hard to beat.

[Lunker Larry]

maybe a simple hook up to a drill would give you the speed control and immediate shut down if needed. No need to over engineer.
Good luck

[Mpyeti]

maybe a simple hook up to a drill would give you the speed control and immediate shut down if needed. No need to over engineer.
Good luck

Currently that is the way she's operated, bolt driven by electric drill - gets tiring on the arms lol