Tom Gardner wrote:
(...)

You have amazing vision, that's exactly what I want to replace, it's not
tolerant of hard/soft/dry/oily wire.


Ah.

In that case I would press the gear on to the end of a combined
clutch/brake. I would run the drive motor continuously and feed
the wire by actuating the clutch, then I would throw out the clutch
and actuate the brake at the end of 'stroke'. Heck, for your app, you
could use opposite poles of a SPDT relay. If the brake isn't on,
the clutch is feeding your wire.

Have a look at the combined clutch/brake units on page 27, 28 of:
http://www.orttech.com/files/pdfs/em206.pdf , for example



--Winston