When weaving the gearbox would be flipped over to a gear with a friction pin, just to stop the warp drum free-spinning. When engaged, the warp thread drum would rotate at a “surface speed” ever so slightly faster than the feed rate of the pinch rollers – the white clutch gear would deal with any mismatch in speeds. The gearbox would be engaged when loading the warp drum. They would ensure that all the threads passed through the loom at the same speed. The pinch rollers would be in use during weaving, to provide a tension control between the back of the loom and the cloth take-up drum at the front. One of two gearboxes – one either side of the loom to drive the warp thread drum. My solution to the differential winding of the warp drum, was to build a set of pinch rollers, that the warp threads went though, and a gearbox that drove the drum. The LDraw model for this can be found at: Warp Thread Winding Gearbox Due to the different winding thicknesses, this would either result in some threads getting very slack or, more commonly, some threads getting very very tight. When the loom was running it’d pull all the threads through at the same rate.
Since the threads didn’t lie completely flat on top of each other, the drum would end up with different “thicknesses” of threads, resulting in some threads winding on faster than others – since C = 2πr. This suffered from a) being tedious, and b) the threads would wind on at different rates. In my original build I used to have to wind the warp threads on, en masse, by hand. This was used at the back of the loom and stored the warp threads for feeding in to the loom. This is the original warp thread winding drum. Warp Thread Drum 3D render of the old warp drum So, without further ado, here are the parts I’ve done so far. I’ll still need to model the main framework of it, but that will come in time. As time goes by I intend modelling the separate “modules” of the loom, and then build up a body of work of all the sections. This way I have the old parts for reference should I ever want to look back on them in the future, and the new parts have been modelled from the start. What I decided to do as I went along was to actually model the parts I was removing, and to model the new parts as I went.
Recently I’ve been making changes to the loom, so have been removing old parts and making new modules to replace them. I’ve always said that I’d make them, and I will stick to that … but it’s a BIG task, and will take a long time.
This year's software also introduces 3D building instructions created via Autodesk.Ever since I started to show my LEGO® loom on this blog, Facebook and YouTube, I’ve had people ask me for build instructions. Like all previous Mindstorms, the capabilities are vast - the central Brick runs on an open-source Linux operating system, and new robot programs and builds can be easily shared online. The box even unfolds to form a test-track surface.Īn included remote control works with the IR sensor to execute preset functions or enable newly programmed ones from up to 6 feet away, and the IR sensor can also be used to detect distance and objects. From there, you need to install the software to learn how to make other robots, and then take on preinstalled missions for each robot to learn extra features and programming steps. It walks you through creating a beginner-level robot with easy step-by-step pictures. The Lego-like documentation made sense to me it would make sense to anyone who has bought Ikea furniture, too. I admit, I have previous experience putting together tons of Lego sets with my son, but I'm not a robotics person.