U.S. Solid Dual-Purpose Electric/Manual Coil Winding Machine w/Counter

Works well! Soon this 1932 Philco will be reassembled and returned to its owner.

The winder arrived surprisingly quickly, and the price was great.Overall,I really like the unit. It does a great job winding coils, and with the additional screw on chuck, it can hold very small bobbins. I would have given it five stars, but for the packaging when shipped. It could have been a lot better. Mine was delayed during shipping (not the shippers fault), but when it arrived, it was in a few ill-fitting styrofoam blocks, which resulted in damage during shipping. The big gear that controls the counter was snapped in half. I didn't want to send it back and get a replacement--I needed it right away. I was able to repair the gear using epoxy and a couple small sheet metal patches, and it works fine. Still, better packaging would have prevented the problem. It is obviously a cheap Chinese unit that is available under a lot of different names.It is solid, heavy and most of the gearing is good, strong metal. The gear that attaches to the turn counter is, as I said, plastic and it snapped in half during shipping.One other thing-- the title is misleading. As it arrives, the unit is a hand-cranked unit only. It CAN become an electric coil winding machine with the addition of a motor and belt, which you'd have to find on your own. Let me make it clear, this unit at this price does NOT include a motor. It says so in the description, but it can easily be overlooked. I may add a motor at some time, but for now, the hand crank is fine.Over all, I can endorse the winder. If you are going to make a lot, and I mean a LOT of coils, you might want to get something more powerful and expensive. But for my needs, this one works great. I only wish it had been packaged better.

This is pretty good! In looking at reviews for similar products people reported that theirs was broken when it arrived or that it was shipped only in a plastic bag. This arrived quickly and was packed in the original packaging and also inside an Amazon box. I think this is very heavy duty. Although the casting is a little rough, I see no reason this would not essentially last forever. All the gears are steel or Iron except the ones that power counter.

Missing lid was replaced by taped on bubble wrap. Inside of box was jumbled up..Removing tape on bubble wrap removed printd portion on instructions that weretaped to it!Shreds of styrafoam and small particles required extensive cleaning!Other than that it works fine (The missing instructions weren't hard to figure out.

I took my Dremel out to shave some of the nasty knots on the bottom of the because the winder wouldn't sit flat. While shaving off some of the protrusions, I suddenly witnessed a bunch of brown dust coming off the area I was grinding! This is rust! I lightly shaved away more paint and found lots of it. I then inspected all over the winder's metal casting and found so many more places where paint is obviously hiding rust. Anywhere that you see non-glossy paint (a flat sheen) is where rust lies beneath.I'm so disappointed that they would coat the metal so long after it has been sitting in what must have been an ocean harbor. Who would do this? How are any of these going to hold up over time? I'm just baffled...

This machine works very well and is much cheaper than just about any alternative (including many diy ones). I originally ordered an NZ-1 winder from a different seller. It had a different brand name and the faceplate was in Chinese as opposed to English. One of the gears is plastic and when it arrived the plastic gear was broken in half. I returned it and decided to try the one offered by this seller instead. This one still has a plastic gear, but it arrived intact and it is a different type of plastic that I am pretty confident will not break.I used it to wind a guitar pickup and it worked great. I stuck a strong magnet on the end of the spindle and it held the pickup in place via the center pole pieces.The counter works great and seems to be accurate. If you turn it in reverse, the counter reverses as well, so should you need to do some unwinding if you have a problem, the count will stay accurate.It is mentioned that you can hook a motor up to the winder, but does not give good information on how to do this or what kind of motor to use. I found a write-up that someone who used this winder to make Helmholtz coils produced. In their write-up, they mentioned that it works well with an old sewing machine motor and pedal (1.0 AMPS HOME SEWING MACHINE MOTOR & PEDAL SINGER HA1 15 66 99). These are available for very cheap on ebay. I ordered one but have yet to receive it and see how well it works. Should you hook it up to a sewing machine motor, you need to be careful to not go too fast, as the motor will allow for higher RPMs than the winder is rated for.The only reason I give it four stars instead of five is because of the poorly written instructions/documentation.**Edit**I have used this multiple times now for winding pickups. It still works great. I did get the sewing machine motor hooked up to it and mounted it all to a piece of 2x6 and have not had any major issues other than having to keep my eye on the speed. I also occasionally need to give the motor a break to keep it from getting too warm.I no longer use the magnet to hold the pickup in place. Instead, I bolted a piece of board vertically to the end of the shaft. Before winding a pickup, I apply carpet tape to the board and stick the pickup bobbin directly to the carpet tape. I got this idea from reading the manual for a professional pickup winder to see how they held their bobbins.I have added a couple of photos to show my setup.