How do you make your own slip ring? It’s actually a surprisingly common question.
When you consider their multitude of uses, it’s easy to see why. For one, they help to power wind turbines, and support the ever advancing renewable energy initiatives of the future. Elsewhere, and they’re used to bring the likes of BB8 - R2D2’s heir apparent and star of The Force Awakens - to life. In fact, you’d be surprised at just how many devices and equipment - from military hardware to NASA satellites - makes use of a slip ring’s unique ability to deliver power to rotating and moving components.
Professional and industrial-grade slip rings are available via numerous retailers, though those looking for a slip ring solution for smaller or hobby scale projects don’t always have access to that kind of cash. Thankfully, there are numerous guides across the web that detail how to do just this, so today we’re going to round them up in the one place to make the process that much easier. Less time searching and more time making? Sounds good to me!
Hold Up, What Is A Slip Ring Exactly? And How Does It Work?
With a quick Google search you’ll find plenty of existing resources that dive deeper into the What, When and Where of Slip Rings. In fact, a search for ‘What are slip rings’ returns some 15,000,000 results! We’re guessing that if you’re looking for ways to build them, you probably know what you’re getting yourself into. So rather than bore you with the finer details, we’re going to bring you up to speed with a quick TL;DR:
At their most basic? Slip Rings are able to effectively - and efficiently - transmit electrical, data or other signals across rotating assemblies, all while effectively maintaining this connection where other stationary alternatives just couldn’t cut it. So if it moves and requires power? It’s more than likely that a slip ring is the solution.
The diagram below highlights how Slip Rings function in more detail:
Want To Make Your Own Home Made Slip Ring? Here’s How!
1. Home Made Slipring For Wind Turbine
Written by Chartley4 @ Instructables
The go-to source for all things hacked, homemade and DiY, Chartley4’s guide over at Instructables takes you step-by-step through the process of creating your very own slip ring for use with a wind turbine or similar device. Slip rings actually have a long-held place as a major component of commercial renewable energy projects - wind turbines included - so this project let’s you recreate this on a much smaller, but no less worthwhile scale.
2. How-To For A Slip Ring Connector Using Ball Bearings
Written by Stephan Schulz
If you like to dive into the smaller details and get your hands dirty, then Stephan’s guide is the one you’ll want to check out. Showing you how to create a slip ring using ball bearings, this guide includes a wealth of images that ensure you know what you’re doing - and why - every step of the way. Stephan’s guide came about as a way to power up fluorescent light bulbs while they were turning, which would be an impossible task without the help of a slip ring.
3. 360 Degree Range Finder Slip Ring
Written by Let’s Make Robots
Let’s Make Robots project came about as a much needed component of a project to build a 360 degree range finder. With the level of twist, turn and rotation involved in a project like this? You need a component that can handle that level of motion while still being able to deliver power effectively and reliably. Enter: Slip Rings.
Let’s Make Robots name also couldn’t be more apt, when you consider Slip Rings are what bring some of our most recognisable robots - whether on the silver screen, the big screen, or behind the manufacturing scenes - to life, and give them a range of flexibility and movement they wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve. While this project can suffer from some interference and signal loss due to the parts involved, for a DiY solution it’s more than satisfactory.
4. Home Made Sliprings
Written by The Back Shed
This post from The Back Shed shows us just how easy it can be to make a slip ring for a home made wind turbines. Here, slip rings are used to address that ever present hassle of many homemade wind turbines: having to disconnect and unwind the cable time and again as it becomes tangled with use over time.
If you live close enough to your wind turbine? It may not be that big an issue. But if you’re unlikely to be around or situated near for prolonged periods of time, then a slip ring is your best option. And this guide is the best explanation as to both How and Why.
Better still? This post sets out to create a slip ring with parts readily available at any regular hardware store, which means it’s that much easier for you to pick up the parts and try this one yourself.
5. Making A Slip Ring Connector
Written by Chuck @ Fieldlines Forums
Another one for the DiY wind turbine, renewable energy crowd, Chuck over at the Fieldlines Forums shows us how he used simple, readily available plumbing parts to make his very own slip ring and brush assembly, complete with detailed pics and instructions. Not bad for a homebrew system that uses everyday components!
