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Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:24 pm
by jdurand
I'm adding a second hot end, LED lighting and water cooling to my new Max v2 and simply ran out of room to pull all the wires up through the center of the rails. So... following a suggestion from my wife on a trip to the local UPS shipping/packing store to drop off a bunch of outgoing product we bought some package strapping from them. It's tough plastic, no glue, 1/2" wide, thin, and $0.25 per meter. It slips in nicely well out of reach of the cheapskate wheels and leaves plenty of room for wires. It's actually much easier than running wires up through the hole!

I deburred the inside of all the rails as there was quite a bit of slag left over from cutting. I used a standard GloBurr B deburring tool
http://www.vargus.com/shaviv/template/d ... &pageId=50

Picture shows strapping installed with some wires and cheapskate. Also shown is end of strapping hanging in the air to the right of the rail.

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:35 pm
by bvandiepenbos
Brilliant !!

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:50 am
by Eaglezsoar
Great idea!

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 4:22 am
by travelphotog
I like this. Thanks for the share. This will allow me to add some much needed wiring while I finish up my enclosure so I can run wires inside of the corner supports of the enclosure seams.

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 8:03 pm
by 3D-Print
Awesome idea! How did you route the wires at the base.

Thanks.

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:15 am
by jdurand
I ran the center wires out the normal hole and the side wires out the other side.

Re: Routing extra wires up rails

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:35 am
by travelphotog
I have wires for my LEDs coming out of the unused sides of the extrusion where there is no belt and such.. It is a bit of a tight fit around the nuts in the track down below but I did manage it on both sides in the front and will be doing much in same on the back to fit what I want up to the top. I just have a small hole in the upright for my enclosure that allows the wire to get inside the hollow space up the middle. You can see in the pic below the spaces that allow wires to go through the corner supports. I also have a custom channel on the inside corner for LED strips. It would be nothing to design that as a closed but hollow channel that would allow a TON of wires to run all the way to the top section of the printer. My enclosure will run from the print bed to above the filament (which will be turned on the side in a new mount) area to keep the filament dry for longer prints with a dehumidifier and heat controlled system.
Built in Wire Highway and LED strip channel
Built in Wire Highway and LED strip channel
But the point is that you can run the wires up the supports of the corners in an enclosure if you design it in that way.