Doug-P said:Would it be feasible to add a drive motor to run the feed spool? If so, this would ease the requirements for the feed/stepper motor
Technically feasible, yes. But I don't think it's economically feasible in this application. It would have to be set up on some kind of feedback system which senses the pull from the drive rollers downstream, or perhaps maintaining a degree of "slack" at the roll's perimeter. I wouldn't think that you could use a constant speed motor, since the effective diameter of the roll changes continuously, depending on what part of the roll the wire is feeding from at any given instant.
I should point out that the unwinding of a roll of spring wire is, in a small sense, self-driven. A certain amount of work is expended in coiling the wire. Since the elastic limit of the wire has not been exceeded, the work that was performed in coiling the spring wire remains within the wire itslef as stored potential energy. That energy is released when it is uncoiled, and in this case, that release manifests as a small amount of torque applied in the direction that the wire is uncoiling. Something to be reckoned with and/or used, as I see it.
pstephens
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