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SkeinMinder User Guide
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
Contents
Setup your SkeinMinder ............................................................................................................................... 1
Unpack the Box ......................................................................................................................................... 1
Scope Out your Winder ............................................................................................................................. 2
Attach the Rotation Counter ..................................................................................................................... 3
Attach the Magnet .................................................................................................................................... 4
Check the Counter with your Winder ....................................................................................................... 4
Tidy your Cables ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Ready Your Winder ................................................................................................................................... 6
You’re done! ............................................................................................................................................. 6
It’s Time to Wind! ......................................................................................................................................... 7
Winding from Cones ................................................................................................................................. 7
Winding Minis, or Winding Smaller Skeins from Larger Skeins ................................................................ 7
Re‐skeining, or Re‐winding a Full Skein .................................................................................................... 8
Yarn Jam Detection ................................................................................................................................... 8
I Need to Shut the Winder Off! NOW!!! .................................................................................................. 8
The Buttons Explained .................................................................................................................................. 9
Up .............................................................................................................................................................. 9
Down ......................................................................................................................................................... 9
Menu ......................................................................................................................................................... 9
Zero ........................................................................................................................................................... 9
The Big Red Button ................................................................................................................................... 9
The Menu Section ....................................................................................................................................... 10
JAM TIME ................................................................................................................................................ 10
OVERSHOOT ............................................................................................................................................ 10
YO SENSE (an advanced mode) ............................................................................................................... 10
STOP @ SETPT ......................................................................................................................................... 11
AUTO ZERO ............................................................................................................................................. 11
Stop Codes .................................................................................................................................................. 12
Safety .......................................................................................................................................................... 13
Overload Fuse ............................................................................................................................................. 13
Technical Support ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Help us Get the Word Out! ......................................................................................................................... 14
Revolutionize
your Winding with the
SkeinMinder
Thank you for purchasing a SkeinMinder! We’ve designed it to be as self‐explanatory as possible, but a good introduction makes life easier for everyone. If you take a few minutes to read through this, you’ll have a good idea of how the SkeinMinder works, and what to tweak to make your particular winding setup as smooth as possible.
Setup your SkeinMinder
1.
Unpack the Box
Included in the box is:
The SkeinMinder
Power Cord
Rotation Counter
Screw Eye
Magnet
Cable Guides (4)
Power Cord
SkeinMinder
Cable Guides
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
Screw Eye and Magnet
1
2.
Scope Out your Winder
The rotation counter and magnet work as a pair – when the magnet passes by the rotation counter, it signals the SkeinMinder to add one rotation to the current count. The wired counter should be attached to the fixed base of your winder, and the magnet should be attached to the rotating hub or arm. There needs to be a
1
/
8
” –
1
/
4
” gap between them.
This is important. Please measure it.
A.
Find a good spot to attach the rotation counter and magnet. The rotation counter goes on the fixed base of your winder, and the magnet goes on the moving arms, hub, or drive wheel.
They need to be 1/8” ‐ 1/4” apart, and the magnet should pass directly in front
of the counter.
B.
Make a note of where the counter will attach to the base, and where the magnet will sit on the arm, hub, or drive wheel.
1/8” – 1/4”
Rotation Counter and Magnet on a Ball and Skein winder
If you already have a rotation counter on your winder, you may be able to position the SkeinMinder counter to use the existing magnet.
Rotation Counter on a Crazy Monkey winder, using the existing magnet
2
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
3.
Attach the Rotation Counter
The screw eye is used to mount the rotation counter onto winders with wood or plastic bases.
A.
Screw the eye into the winder base. Brute force usually works, though you can also drill a small pilot hole.
B.
Unscrew one of the two nuts that come with the rotation counter. Insert the counter through the eye.
C.
Thread the other nut onto the rotation counter, firmly sandwiching the screw eye between the two nuts.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
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4.
Attach the Magnet
The magnet is adhesive‐backed and will stick to directly to the winder arm, hub, or drive wheel.
A.
Clean the surface with a lightly damp cloth or isopropyl alcohol.
1/8” – 1/4”
B.
Peel off the adhesive backing.
C.
Press the magnet to the arm or hub firmly for 30 seconds.
D.
Measure the distance from the magnet to the rotation counter when they are directly across from each other. If it’s not in the 1/8” – 1/4" range, move the rotation counter forward or backward by adjusting the nuts.
5.
Check the Counter with your Winder
A.
Plug the SkeinMinder into a wall outlet with the power cord provided. Note: at this time, the SkeinMinder
can only use 120V/60Hz AC power (North America
standard).
Power Cord
4
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
B.
Plug the Rotation Counter into the right side of the SkeinMinder.
C.
Manually move your winder arms back and forth, so the magnet passes in front of the counter. The count on the SkeinMinder should increase with each pass, regardless of direction. If it does not, check the spacing between the counter and magnet.
6.
Tidy your Cables
Make sure all cables are routed clear of the winder’s moving parts.
Attach the cable guides to your winder.
A.
Clean the surface of your winder with a lightly damp cloth or isopropyl alcohol.
B.
Peel off the adhesive backing.
C.
Press each cable guide firmly to your winder for 30 seconds.
D.
Gently clip the cable into each guide. The adhesive will firm up after 24 hours, but the guides can creep or move before then.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
Rotation
Counter
5
7.
Ready Your Winder
A.
With your winder still plugged directly into a wall outlet, turn it on and adjust it to your preferred winding speed.
B.
With the winder still running, simply unplug it from the wall.
C.
The Big Red Button on the SkeinMinder should not be lit. If it is blinking, press the Zero button.
D.
Plug your winder into the SkeinMinder. As long as the Big Red Button is off, your winder will not turn on.
You’re done!
Not Lit
That’s right, you’re ready to wind! The SkeinMinder is set to 100 rotations by default, so if you want to wind a 200 yd skein, set your winder to a 2 yd circumference and press the big red button!
Winder
Cord
6
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
It’s Time to Wind!
Winding from Cones
The SkeinMinder is set up to wind from cones by default. You won’t need to change the MENU settings the first time you use it.
1. Under MENU, set: a. YO SENSE to OFF. b. STOP @ SETPT to ON. c. AUTO ZERO to ON.
2. Set your desired number of rotations by pressing the up and down arrow buttons.
Minimum SET points for 200 and 400 yd skeins
Desired skein length
400 yds
400 yds
400 yds
200 yds
200 yds
200 yds
Winder arms set to
2.0 yds
1.5 yds
1.0 yds
2.0 yds
1.5 yds
1.0 yds
SET rotations >=
200
267
400
100
134
200
3. Press the Big Red Button to start the winder.
4. The winder will automatically stop when it reaches one less than the SET number.
Tweaking: Every winder setup has a different amount of friction inherent in the system, and different dyers wind at different speeds. Both of these factors affect the amount of overshoot, or number of rotations that happen after the winder is turned off. Winders in some setups will stop about one rotation after power is cut. Others will continue rotating for 3 or 4 more turns before stopping. You can tune the SkeinMinder for your setup by adjusting the OVERSHOOT setting. Read about it in the Menu section.
Winding Minis, or Winding Smaller Skeins from Larger Skeins
Use the same workflow as above. The only difference is that you’re winding from another skein instead of a cone, so you’re likely winding from a swift.
Note: the SkeinMinder will stop your winder, but it won’t stop your swift. You’ll need to manually stop your swift, or suffer the yarn barf consequences! The SkeinMinder is still pretty handy in this scenario – instead of trying to juggle a winder and one or more swifts simultaneously, you only have to keep watch on your swifts.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
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Re‐skeining, or Re‐winding a Full Skein
This can be done to change the way the colors within a skein are presented, or to just tidy a skein before selling it. You may be re‐winding into the same skein circumference, or a different one. In either case, you’re re‐winding an entire skein, from a swift to your winder.
We’ve developed YARNOVER mode to help with this scenario. It will automatically detect when your yarn is “over”; in other words, when the entire skein has been rewound and there’s no more yarn on the swift.
1. Under MENU, set a. YO SENSE to MED. b. STOP @ SETPT to OFF.
2. Press the Big Red Button.
3. Your winder will automatically stop a few rotations after the skein is done.
Tweaking: YARNOVER mode may require some tuning to operate properly, especially if you are re‐ skeining multiple skeins at once. Read about YO MODE SENS in the Menu section. If you want to have a back‐up in case it doesn’t trigger, you can keep STOP @ SETPT ON and adjust your SET point to a few rotations more than what is required for your skein length & new circumference.
Yarn Jam Detection
No matter how carefully we handle our yarn, sometimes it just doesn’t want to behave. The
SkeinMinder will automatically pause your winder when it senses that the yarn is jammed. The Big Red
Button will blink, alerting you to a problem. Take your time, and untangle the yarn. Note that the rotation count will also be frozen, so if you need to manually unwind to ease the tension, you won’t add false extra rotation counts. When the yarn is straightened out and you’ve manually re‐wound it back to the point at which the SkeinMinder paused, press the Big Red Button to continue winding. Your winder will turn on and the count will resume.
Tweaking: You can adjust the sensitivity of the jam detection. Read about JAM TIME in the Menu section.
I Need to Shut the Winder Off! NOW!!!
Don’t panic ‐ all you have to do is press the Big Red Button. The winder will pause and the button will blink. The rotation count will be frozen, the same as in the jam scenario above. Press the Big Red
Button again when you’re ready to continue, and the count will resume.
Note: If your winder tends to overshoot, the rotation counter will miss those extra rotations. You can manually stop your winder arms if you want the count to remain accurate, or you can go ahead knowing that there will be a couple extra yards on that skein.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
8
The Buttons Explained
Up
Increments the SET point. Pressing once will add one to the SET point; pressing and holding will quickly scroll up.
Down
Decrements the SET point. Pressing once will subtract one from the SET point; pressing and
holding will quickly scroll down.
Menu
Access the SkeinMinder’s customizable settings. Press once to access the first setting, press again to access the next one. Use the up and down arrows to adjust each setting. When the last setting is reached, press the Menu button once more to cycle back to regular winding mode.
Note: the Big Red Button is disabled when you are in the Settings Menu. To resume winding,
cycle back to regular winding mode.
To turn the SkeinMinder OFF, press and hold the Menu button for 3 seconds.
To turn the SkeinMinder back ON, press the Big Red Button.
Zero
Sometimes when the winder is paused, you may want to just start over. This resets the
rotation count to 0, and clears any blinking lights due to jams or pauses.
The Big Red Button
The BRB does different things, depending upon what’s currently happening.
Right Now, the the BRB is Pressing the Big Red Button will:
Winder is OFF
Winder is ON
Not Lit
Solid
Winder is paused Blinking
SkeinMinder is OFF N/A
Reset the rotation count*, turn the winder ON
Freeze the rotation count, turn the winder OFF
Continue the rotation count, turn the winder ON
Turn the SkeinMinder ON
*Automatically resetting the rotation count can be changed with the AUTO ZERO setting.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
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The Menu Section
JAM TIME
This is the number of seconds the SkeinMinder waits before determining that the yarn is jammed. After this amount of time has elapsed, the SkeinMinder will pause your winder. To make it less sensitive to jams, increase the number. To make it more sensitive, decrease the number.
The first 3 rotations are treated differently, to allow the SkeinMinder time to get up to speed, and to allow you to quickly fix small tangles & yarn crosses on startup. The JAM TIME for those is the JAM
TIME setting plus 5 seconds.
Range: 2 to 20 seconds
Default: 3 seconds
OVERSHOOT
The winder will stop this many rotations before reaching the SET point. Use this setting to adjust for the amount of internal friction in your winder, and the speed you wind at. If your winder generally freewheels and turns 3 more times after it’s turned off, set this number to 3. That way, it will cut power at 97 if your SET point is 100. The rotation counter will keep counting even after the winder is turned off, so you’ll see rotations increment to 100, and you’ll always have an accurate count.
Range: 0 to 10 rotations
Default: 1 rotation
YO SENSE (an advanced mode)
This allows you to change how sensitive your winder is in YARNOVER mode. The SkeinMinder detects the increase in speed that occurs when your winder is no longer pulling yarn off a swift. HIGH sensitivity means that it will detect a small increase in speed, and LOW sensitivity means it will only trigger on a larger jump in speed.
If your winder is not shutting off when the skein is done, you can:
Increase the sensitivity to MED or HIGH.
Keep STOP @ SETPT ON as a backup. Change the SET rotations to a number 5‐10 higher than needed for your skein circumference and length.
If your winder is shutting off before the skein is done, it’s likely because the speed is varying due to re‐ skeining a messy skein. The skein may have crosses and temporary snags that slow the winder down, then it speeds back up again once the cross or snag is pulled out, triggering a false YARNOVER. There are a few things you can tweak to solve this:
Try making YO SENSE setting less sensitive (LOW or LOWR).
You can turn YARNOVER mode off entirely if you’re winding minis or winding from cones.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
10
When YARNOVER mode triggers a turn‐off, the next time you press the Big Red Button to continue winding, the count will zero automatically. If you’re re‐skeining a full skein and rotation count doesn’t matter, this may not be an issue. But if you are keeping track of rotations, you can turn AUTO ZERO to
OFF. The next time you press the Big Red Button, the count will continue where it left off.
Range: OFF, HIGH, MED, LOW, LOWR
Default: OFF
STOP @ SETPT
This is the main SkeinMinder behavior – it stops your winder when it gets to the SET point. In most scenarios, you’ll want to leave this ON. However, it can be useful to turn it off when re‐skeining and using YARNOVER mode to stop your winder. In that case, it’s useful to ignore the SET point so you don’t have to constantly readjust it for skeins of different lengths. You may also want to turn your winder back into a “normal” winder briefly for whatever reason. You can still stop it manually by pressing the
Big Red Button.
Range: ON/OFF
Default: ON
AUTO ZERO
For most winding tasks, this should be left ON. It means the SkeinMinder will automatically reset the rotation count to zero when you press the Big Red Button to start winding a new batch. Most of the time this is a handy convenience – all you have to do after finishing a batch of winding is attach new yarn, and press the Big Red Button. But occasionally, you may want to prevent it from automatically zeroing. If you turn AUTO ZERO to OFF and want to wind another skein, you will need to press the Zero
button manually before pressing the Big Red Button. Otherwise the winder will not turn on.
Note that when the winder is PAUSED (due to a yarn jam or BRB press and the BRB is blinking), pressing the Big Red Button will always resume the current rotation count. It will never automatically zero it out.
Range: ON/OFF
Default: ON
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
11
Stop Codes
You may have noticed that there’s an icon or letter to the right of the SET point.
Stop Code
This indicates the reason that the winder stopped. It’s useful if the SkeinMinder stops your winder unexpectedly and you’re not sure why.
Stop
Code
J
B
Y
Reason
Winder reached the SET point
Yarn Jam detected
Big Red Button was pressed
Yarnover! No more on swift
Winde r is
Stopped
Paused
Paused
Stopped
Rotation
Count is
Counting
Frozen
Frozen
Counting
When Big Red Button is
Pressed, Current Count
Resets to 0, starts over*
Continues
Continues
Resets to 0, starts over*
*Normal behavior, when AUTO ZERO is ON. When AUTO ZERO is OFF and the rotation count has reached the set point, the ZERO button must be pressed before the Big Red Button will start your winder.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
12
Safety
This device switches 120V AC electricity and there are certain shock hazards. Do not open the case. If the SkeinMinder is damaged in any way, especially if the case is cracked, or if there’s a rattling sound of something loose inside the case, immediately unplug it from the wall. Contact us to return it for repair.
Safety Note: DO NOT PLUG MORE THAN ONE WINDER INTO THE SKEINMINDER.
Overload Fuse
There is a small fuse located in the input power connector. It’s a fast blow fuse designed to protect the internal circuitry in case of an overload. If there is an accidental brief overload that blows the fuse, you can replace it with the spare one in the fuse drawer. Always unplug the SkeinMinder from the power
outlet before replacing the fuse.
Active Fuse
1. Gently pry the fuse drawer open with a small flat‐head screwdriver.
Spare Fuse
2. Remove the active fuse and replace it with the spare fuse.
Safety Note: If your spare fuse blows as well, there could be a problem internal to the SkeinMinder.
Immediately unplug it from the outlet, and contact us to return it for repair.
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
13
Technical Support
We want you to love your SkeinMinder! If you have any questions, or any problems arise, let us know.
Email is best, if you send us a question via social media, we may miss it.
We’re also developing the Support section of our website; check it out for FAQs, videos, and more!
www.skeinminder.com/support
Help us Get the Word Out!
Know another dyer who could totally use a SkeinMinder? Please tell them about it! This is a very niche tool and dyers are a very disperse bunch, so we rely heavily on word of mouth to spread the news. We also love it when you post your experiences on social media! You can find us on:
Instagram @alpenglowyarn #skeinminder
Facebook Alpenglow Yarn
Ravelry Friends of Alpenglow Yarn
@alpenglowyarn #skeinminder
Website
Blog www.skeinminder.com
alpenglowyarn.wordpress.com
search or the click the tag for: skeinminder
© 2015 Alpenglow Yarn
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