Cone Winder - Heavy Duty Ball Winders by NKK

Go to content

Cone Winder

Options

Our Heavy Duty Ball Winder can also be used as a cone winder. Existing ball winder owners can purchase an upgrade kit that converts their heavy duty ball winder into a cone winder.

Our cone winder winds a ball onto a cone. Because it does not wind a traditional cone shape onto the paper cone, we call it a hybrid cone.

We elected to develop this product for the following reasons:

  • We could allow existing customers to wind cones by simply purchasing the Cone Winder Adaptor Kit

  • Our motorized Power Base could be used to drive the cone winder

  • Our Electronic Yarn Meter could be used to measure yarn going onto the cone winder

  • Both existing and new customers could use our field proven heavy duty winder platform to wind industry standard cones




















Why didn't we develop a Traditional Cone Winder?

Because developing a mechanism that would wind traditionally wound cones would have necessitated a major investment in both time and money, and in light of a questionable market for such a device, we elected NOT to develop a tradtional cone winder. An all-new mechanical and motor drive system would have been required. Although there were some users that would have liked a dedicated cone winder, they were looking for a low cost unit which could not be easily designed and still be able to meet our internal design standards. So, we decided to adapt our heavy duty ball winder to meet the cone winder requirement instead.

For those of you who want to see an industrial cone winder that uses the "famous" black cylinder which is used by many industrial developers, take a look at the video below. These guys have made a nice unit that does exactly what some people want. However, that is exactly what we did not want to make - an industrial machine like the one shown in this video. They are not affordable nor are they intended for 95% of the market. But they are neat to watch, however (once you get past the lengthy setup time).
Check the video out here.

Our Cone Winder is actually our Ball Winder -  they are the same machine!

The only difference is we exchange the small diameter spindle for the standard spindle. Look at these pictures to see how by using the small diameter spindle, we are able to mount a wide variety of cones onto the spindle. The Knob and rubber stopper system clamps the cone to the spindle and locks it in place. That enables the user to wind yarn directly onto the cone, almost any size cone.

Discoveries

We did discover some interesting aspects of winding yarn onto cones. These were things we knew about already but the combination of the cone winder capability with our new line of Yarn Pets drove the following concepts home.

Mill wound cones are wound up and down the entire side or height of the cone. This wide traversing of the cone height causes the yarn, often times, to get hung up just for a moment when the yarn is being removed. This hanging up or snagging probem occurs more when the yarn is pulled off horizontally rather than vertically but it happens also during vertical removal as well to soem extent.

However, if you pull the yarn off the cone horizontally rather than vertically, you do not add any twist to the yarn. So horizontal removal is preferred from that standpoint.

Our yarn pet line of cone and ball holders allows the user to remove the yarn horizontally and therefore, eliminate the added twist problem.

Now combine that with the way our cone winder winds balls onto cones and you get a great combination. Our hybrid balls unwind more easily from our cones because of the way we wind them. We do not have to traverse 7 inches of height like a normal mill wound cone does. Our hybrid cones have a lot less snags and catch points when the yarn is removed from the cone than do mill wound cones plus our Pet series can add consistent tension to the yarn by means of our adjustable tensioning posts.

So by using our cone winder and our Pet series of cone holders, you have a much improved experience for delivering yarn from a cone to your tool or project with consistent and reliable yarn tension. That just has not been available before.

Remember, we do not wind a traditional cone, but we wind a cone in a much better way in many respects.

Here is a video which we made in August 2013 which illustrates that the cone winder can handle fine yarns with no problem.

Fine Yarn Demo

Here is a link for an industrial cone winder made by an Italian firm. Check it out (then call us if you need a normally sized cone winder)!
Remember, this is NOT our unit!

Link

How does it work?
 Our innovative and flexible system allows industry standard sized cones to be placed over the ball winder's spindle. We then have the user thread a knob through one of the provided rubber stoppers and then the knob is screwed into the top of the spindle. The knob then captures the cone and prevents it from moving. When done winding, the user unthreads the knob from the spindle (but keeps the rubber stopper on the knob) and lifts the cone off of the machine. We provide three knobs so you can keep three knob-stopper setups ready to go for 3 of your favorite size cones. It works great and can accommodate many different size cones!


 

 




Here are some more photos of the cone winder in action

    
     



Buy one here




Our unit will handle a large variety of cone sizes (7" tall). We cannot accommodate cones which have a small opening at the top, however (such as 3/16" - 1/4"). If you have a small cone size at the top, please let us know and we will check fit.

Sorry, but we cannot fit the Silver Needles brand of plastic cones. They are too skinny to fit over our spindle

Back to content