Finishing Tips and tube thickness

Hello everyone, 

I'm excited to finally have our machine up and running and winding mandrels, but would really love to hear guys experiences in the resin ratio / viscosity used, and how to control the layer thickness.

For our first pipe I used a low viscosity resin ( around 5000 pc), and put the correct amount of resin per weight of fiber expected into the bath. Within about 4 minutes, the bath was almost empty, and the resin was congealing around the wind, and the strands were " parting" the resin as they were being layed. Is this normal? Is there a special technique, or a particular viscosity resin, or a special amount of tightness in the squeege device  people are using to reduce wetout? Is it best to put all in, or put some in, then a little more later ?

Secondly, I generated the G-code for 1 x 60 degree wind, which resulted in 450 passes on a 30cm long, 4.5cm diameter mandrel. Needless to say, 30 minutes in, as the thickness is going past 2mm, I'm wondering what setting I have entered incorrectly?

Is there a trick to setting the layers? Is there any way of knowing how much carbon will be used? 

Any experiences greatly appreciated, good or bad

Nick

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Replies

    • I had the same problem with glass and carbon getting caught in the ends of the delivery head roller.  I have a simple modification that has fixed the problem. Two short pieces of PVC or wooden dowel. Slight flat on one side and screwed to the bracket just behind the delivery head roller. The PVC version is nice but the wood version works fine, is cheap, fast to fabricate, and easily disposable if you don't want to clean them.  Although, once they have a bit of resin on them, they work even better.  3376247?profile=original

  • Hi Nicholas,

    I think many are having similar issues. I devised a resin squeezer which helped reduce the amount of resin used. I also got an ultra slow setting resin which helped. Regarding the thickness and finish, I have currently abandoned the winder after I couldn't sort these out and am hoping to come back to them when someone figures it out or I have time to have a crack at it. 

    Factors that will change the thickness and the finish

    include the tension you have on the filament and the tension you put on the tape. Let me know if you have had any luck!

    • Jeremy,

      If you have any desire to sell the winder I'm hoping to buy one.

    • Hi Joshua,

      I would potentially consider selling. Where are you based though? Probably not worth it for either of us unless you are based in Australia. 

      Cheers,

      J.

    • Hi Jeremy

      We are about to test a collapsed mandrel system, which I'm pretty sure will do the trick. And cure the epoxy with a home made VAT bagging system :) should have some results shortly
    • Hi Nicholas,

      That sounds great. Looking forward to hearing about the results!
  • Hey guys - I found an anomaly with 4.13 of the 4-axis winding software.

    If you select the units as mm, a message comes up saying that all units are now in mm. However....

    The calculations for the number of mandrel passes appears to be calculated as if the units are in inches. The movement of the mandrel however ( left and right ) and delivery path distance - appears to be respecting the fact that you have selected mm instead of inches.

    Does anyone else have the same issue? I you select mm, and enter your values in mm - take a look at the number of passes it lists, verses if the numbers are in inches?

    Nick

    • Hi Nicholas, 

      I had the same issue, everything had to be in inches. 

      J. 

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