Something for the weekend…
I have spent many years of my life hauling up and down a bunch of cables taping them together. When not talking toss to the person working with me, and probably around hour 2 I start to wonder why there is not some machine to help with this work. And then I go back to pacing up and down as it is actually quite satisfying.
Even a trolley with in-feed and out-feed rollers would help take the strain off. And then I thought, if you are going to do that, you might as well go a little bit further and make it auto tape… and that is more fun. So I started there. It is also fun to experiment a bit more with Fusion360 spur gear generator, steppers etc.
The scissor arm is moved by a stepper motor on the back, with a 3D printed 1/4 gear.
It is made from surplus parts and materials scavenged from around the workshop. The limit switches are from an old toaster. The scissor arm is a bit of din-rail. The mounting plate is from a failed pencil lampshade, providing lots of handy holes for clipping cables.