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I've reached a point where I'm actively planning to add another extruder, fans and maybe some LED lights to the hot-end carriage. During the initial build I thought I would be clever and install extra wiring for this future upgrade but I found that it was impossible to get more than the minimum required wiring through the extruded aluminium towers.

I could just run the wiring up from the Rambo on the exterior loosely, or in a sheath, but this will look unsightly. I might try to install some kind of stiff plastic tubing as conduit but before I do I was wondering what have other people have done to add extra wiring and make it look "professional"?

Thanks

Some have used 1/2" or 3/4" plastic tubing "pipe" some have used a wooden dowel and twisted the wire around it.
The plastic poles do not look that bad when painted the right color.

There is a sheet of lastic that you can slide on one of the sides of the towers and use fhat as a sealed conduit. Tricklaser had something like that i believe. I am on mobile so a bit difficult to pull you a link.

I didn't see anything like that on the Tricklaser website which is unfortunate...I likely will purchase the LED ring from there.

Someone else discovered that the 1/2" wide, plastic banding straps from UPS(?) worked just as well as the tricklaser covers,

When I rebuilt my Rostock Max, I did something similar to what Eagle says, but instead of using plastic tubings I've used aluminum.
I really like using this hollow bars for all the wiring. The only thing that runs though the T-slots is the endstops wiring.
Aesthetically is a bit different than a Rostock Max v2, but you can still do the same. Just make some holes and check that the cheapskates can run freely.

Here are some pics:

2 aluminum hollow bars connect the the top plate with the rambo section. Make sure to smooth the edge, if not it will cut the cables when installing them. Believe me
[img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7366/165 ... fd23_o.jpg[/img]
[img]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8669/163 ... ebe3_o.jpg[/img]

An M3 bolt prevents the bars from moving.
[img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7314/159 ... d6a1_o.jpg[/img]
[img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7415/165 ... c7db_o.jpg[/img]

Genius. I was thinking of a way to mount square stock aluminum so it goes up the back of the Z tower with stand offs that hook over the tower mount screws, but this is way cleaner and easier.

Very nicely done

What's that iron-looking bolted plate surrounding the upper tower mounts?

Tincho85,

That looks very good and seems easy to do. I like that the square tubing appears similar to the square tower legs so they do not look like obvious add-ons.

I'll have to find a different place to put them though, since the V2 has more vent slotting around the Z-tower than the V1 it appears, and I don't want to cut into that. Perhaps one on each side of the X and Y towers for visual balance, mounted on the "backside" to leave the front open as possible for access to the build plate.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Regards

PS: Yes, the bolted plate has me curious too!

DeltaCon wrote:What's that iron-looking bolted plate surrounding the upper tower mounts?

Tincho redid a large amount of the laser cutting for his Max V1, so that plate is a reinforcing spar for his upper plate. It's just painted laser cut MDF.

Take a look at this thread here: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?t=7686. He did some very nice looking work with it.

Mac The Knife wrote:Someone else discovered that the 1/2" wide, plastic banding straps from UPS(?) worked just as well as the tricklaser covers,

I used the tricklaser acrylic strips, but any piece of material the right width would work. I ran wiring for a second extruder and hot end, plus a few extra wires for future use in LED's or extra electronics.

It worked, but it was probably a lot more effort than setting up dedicated conduit, with the upside that it looks nicer to not have an extra upright for the additional wire runs.

A couple challenges with doing extra runs through the existing upright were:
- Routing the wire at the bottom requires some sharp bends to avoid rubbing/tangling with anything else in that area
- The sides of the t-slot don't have belts, but they do have the t-slot nuts that need to be loosened to permit wires to be pulled and will constrict wire runs when tightened back down. There's some risk of wires being cut there.

Well I finished installing some extra wiring channels this weekend. I used Tincho85's idea (thanks) and added a couple of things.

Used 3/4" (19mm) square aluminium tubes to give me LOTS of extra space. As I mentioned before I moved them to behind the X and Y towers since the Max V2 seems to have a lot of vent holes beside the Z tower.

I knew I could never cut the holes as nicely as Tincho85 had done so I printed up some square "grommets" to finish around the holes. The bottom ones have a lip on the lower inside to prevent the tube from sliding through. This does away with the need for the cap screw on the top side. The lip also helps protect the wiring from rubbing on the metal tube edge, but I filed aluminium edges with a smooth bevel anyway.
The top grommets were done a little different. They have no inner lip. This allows the tube to slide completely through enough to let it swing into place and seat into the bottom grommet. They do have a lip on the exterior to let them snap into place and stay up.
The upper holes are bit more ragged. I didn't notice how much until I saw the pictures. I may touch-up the edges with some magic-maker. The grommets are only 1mm bigger each side to cover the edges so I probably should have made them a bit bigger.
The insert in the top of the tube is just some more wire protection.

The tubes do clash a bit with the cooling fan.
I could move the fan to the Z tower side but I want to add the other two anyway so this clash will still be an issue. Right now I will just reduce the print diameter. Eventually I will try to design some fan shrouds that move the fans closer to the print head.

Final shot
Thanks Tincho85 and everyone else for your suggestions.

Regards

Nicely done!

g.

Indeed, that looks great!
Now you have a lot of room to play with. The tubes I've used ended up being a little small.

Very nice and I have been using these folks for many years for metal as I live very far from the nearest shop where you can roll up and get what you need cut to order rather than in 12 foot or longer lengths the way many industrial suppliers work
http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... Ap968P8HAQ

Well after spending the last couple days squeezing in a pair of 22GA wires into two of the tower legs, I though I had meet my need for extra wire.
I have no plans for a dual extruder as I hope to use Pallete for multi color printing.
So 4 extra wires worked, until I put the wire and tube in place and saw the rub. I find the poor clearance on the wires rubbing past the belt rollers not acceptable.
Reading on the mods listed here I am going to make the step and install a pair of tubes. I will see if I go with round or square both have pros and cons. I will keep the tower legs just for running end stop wires in (one per leg).

So off to the metal supply to find some 1/2" stock square, round or radius corner square. And dig out a forstner bit and plot the safest placement for the holes.

2YRRAH, a very nice job and I really like the way you printed the square "grommets".
Thanks for the pictures!