About

Part machine. Part monster.  The yarn monster eats raw yarn and excretes perfectly rolled yarn balls.  A wireless remote control allows for the adjustment of the speed at which the monster consumes your yarn.  Yarn Monster eats other yarn winders for breakfast.

Hardware

The yarn winder is powered by a stepper motor, which is driven by an Easy Driver & Arduino Pro Mini.  The Arduino receives speed instructions via XBee from a remotely connected potentiometer.

The remote & controller boards were both designed in Eagle and etched using muriatic acid and H2O2.  Click here to view an image gallery that shows the etching process.

Full list of hardware:

• EasyDriver Stepper Motor Driver (SparkFun)
• Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 3.3V/8MHz (SparkFun)
• Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 5V/16MHz (SparkFun)
• Stepper Motor with Cable (SparkFun)
• Universal Mounting Hub - 5mm Aluminum (SparkFun)
• 2x XBee 1mW Chip Antenna (SparkFun)
• XBee Explorer Regulated (SparkFun)
• 2x Super Bright LED - Blue 10mm (SparkFun)
• Voltage Regulator - 3.3V (SparkFun)
• Rotary Potentiometer - 4.7k Ohm, Linear (SparkFun)
• SPST PC-Mountable Submini Toggle Switch (RadioShack)
• Copper Clad Board 1.6 mm Double Sided (Mouser)

Source

The source for the Yarn Monster's Arduino code is available at the Yarn Monster GitHub repository.