Top Mount Extruder Wiring Extension
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:43 pm
We wanted a way to cleanly move the extruder and head wiring up top to support two top mounted extruders without a huge bundle of wires. We went with the Trick Laser top mount extruders but it could be used with the SeeMeCNC versions as well.
I whipped out a simple set of boards on our CNC mill that condense 2 sets of heater power, extruder motor, thermistor and a 2 wire auxiliary connection to two 26 pin ribbon cables. The heater connections use 6 parallel wires each. The motors use 2 parallel wires each and the thermistor and AUX connections one wire each in the ribbon cable. For typical #26 conductor ribbon cable this give the equivalent of somewhere between a #18 and #19 conductor. Total length of the ribbon cables is just short of 4 ft. We had to make up a couple of jumpers to go from the RamBO board to the bottom side extender board mounted in the unused bay between the Y and Z towers. Connections are either standard C-Grid connectors and terminal blocks so everything is simply wired 1 to 1 with the existing wiring.
Preliminary testing shows that the hot end and extruder motors work just fine and reach temperature without problem. We haven't noticed any conductor heating but will monitor it the first long duration print.
Photos tell a better story. The is still some copper on the corners of the top board where I had to mill the top copper away and didn't quite get the depth right.
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Top_Board.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Top_End.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Base.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Full_Length.jpg[/img]
If it works out well I can supply Gerber and drill files to anyone interested or provide it in DesignSpark format (We don't do Eagle - sorry)
I whipped out a simple set of boards on our CNC mill that condense 2 sets of heater power, extruder motor, thermistor and a 2 wire auxiliary connection to two 26 pin ribbon cables. The heater connections use 6 parallel wires each. The motors use 2 parallel wires each and the thermistor and AUX connections one wire each in the ribbon cable. For typical #26 conductor ribbon cable this give the equivalent of somewhere between a #18 and #19 conductor. Total length of the ribbon cables is just short of 4 ft. We had to make up a couple of jumpers to go from the RamBO board to the bottom side extender board mounted in the unused bay between the Y and Z towers. Connections are either standard C-Grid connectors and terminal blocks so everything is simply wired 1 to 1 with the existing wiring.
Preliminary testing shows that the hot end and extruder motors work just fine and reach temperature without problem. We haven't noticed any conductor heating but will monitor it the first long duration print.
Photos tell a better story. The is still some copper on the corners of the top board where I had to mill the top copper away and didn't quite get the depth right.
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Top_Board.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Top_End.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Base.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.celeritous.com/Public/Full_Length.jpg[/img]
If it works out well I can supply Gerber and drill files to anyone interested or provide it in DesignSpark format (We don't do Eagle - sorry)