How do others do their cable management. My cable which connect the central unit and the module got behind a object which i was printing and got stuck between the axis. With as a result that the cable is now rubbish.
How doe other do their cable management?
From your picture it looks like the cable is routed at the front of the axis it should be behind it with the supplied cable guide.
Wow, dose your enclosure get hot with the power supply being inside it?
5 ° C above room temperature. there is no longer a cover on the front or back of the power supply. there is a draft. The case of the power supply unit has 34 ° C. The housing is assembled completely differently than intended by the manufacturer. the doors are on the other side, the fan is on top, and the filament is inside.
For taking the picture I pulled it to the front side. Normally it is on the back side.
That happened to me too, but with the X linear module cable - got looped around the top of the Z axis.
Reach out to support and ask to buy more cables - they are cheap. For $14 + shipping I got 2 toolhead cables, 2 enclosure cables, and 1 PSU cable.
For the toolhead cable there is a clip it’s supposed to go in on the back of the Z tower, that’s been sufficient for me. For the X axis I looped it down under the other controller cables and that seems to have fixed that issue.
I’ll will try it, had found this on Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4116706/files
which looks like a clever idea was not sure if the enclosure would get too hot.
I’d be concerned about particles building up in the power supply with laser and CNC work.
I see it the same way with the dust. Therefore the power supply is only temporarily inside. When I get started with laser and CNC, the power supply comes in a separate housing under the plate. But for this I will remove the original from its current housing.
I’ve not purchased it yet, but I’m planning on using drag chain, also called cable carrier. It’s something of an industry standard for this application. The big advantage of drag chain is that the cable is always in a known configuration given a position along some axis. A secondary advantage is that the cable it carries only bends and does not slide. For the 2.0 devices, to reach the work head you’d have one length on top of the X-axis linear module and another alongside one of the two Z-axis modules.
Small-size plastic drag chain is readily available and inexpensive. It needs some simple fixtures specific to the machine to keep the ends in place. These could be printed. Printing the drag chain could also work, but it wouldn’t be cheaper to make than to buy.
The reason I haven’t embarked in on this yet is that the stock cables that come with the SM are all too short to be of use. The only downside of drag chain is that you need slightly more length of cable, since you’re moving only along axes and can’t shorten by going diagonal. I very much doubt that SM itself ever had such longer cables manufactured and I’m not holding my breath that SM will make them available for sale. I’ve been meaning on finding a second source for the plugs and sockets that these devices use, but I’ve not put the time in yet.
Now that you mention drag chains - on top of the X axis for the toolhead would be perfect for that. The X linear module up the Z tower too. The cables are long enough for both of those, if I understand right.
You mentioned the cables aren’t long enough though - why’s that? I must not be picturing what you’re thinking.
Please excuse the terrible MSPaint here, but if the drag chain is the green thing around the toolhead cable (blue), wouldn’t that work? That would constrain it on top of the X axis, with a few inches poking out the toolhead end to allow it to come forward and down to the toolhead.
The minimum length of cable per axis, assuming the cable starts at an end, is the sum of (1) the length of travel and (2) a semicircle at the bend radius. (The semicircle is a configuration of the chain that travels at half the speed of the axis motion.) Doing a really quick estimate, that’s about 18 + 4 = 22 inches. If you’re going to put a length of chain on all moving axes, that’s 2 x 22 = 44 inches. You can get away with half the length of travel on the first axis in sequence, so that gets you down to 35 inches. Plus there some extra require for the segments from the controller to the first axis, between axes, and from the last axis to the tool head. The tool head cable as supplied is around 30 inches. There’s no way to use that properly with two axes of drag chain.
Your picture suggests that you could use drag chain only on the X axis and leave the Z axis hanging loose. That would have fixed the problem that the original poster illustrated. It would also mean the next problem would be the Z-part of the cable getting caught up on something and causing trouble. It looks like you need about 8 inches to get from the connector on the controller to the axis at the lowest point of travel. That’s now 30 inches, which means you’re short because you need a couple of inches to get from the top of the drag chain to the tool head.
I should also add that 4 inches for the semicircle is too small for me. It’s going to be around twice that, because I’m also planning on running exhaust hoses with the drag chain, which require a larger bend diameter. I’m fairly sure this will all fit in the SM enclosure, albeit with a modification to raise the enclosure a few inches, just shy of the height where the moving subbase would collide with the frame struts.
The upshot of all of this is that I need longer cables before I pursue this.
I bought spare cables from Snapmaker - I’m planning on cutting one of the spares in half - splicing in a ribbon cable to extend it to 44+" is great.
Thanks for the info! I wasn’t thinking of putting a chain on both axes, but if you have to lengthen the cable anyways, no reason not to!
I never had a problem with the X axis cable, the Z tower clip seems to keep it out of the way.
The Heated bed cable on my A350 could catch on the linear modules, so I added a bent spring steel wire holder to keep it up.
I imagine the same could work on the tool head to hold the cable out over the back of the head and up above the print/cut area.
