Can standard telephone wire be used for wiring steppers? It's 22/4...

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1

Thoughts?

2

No. Cat-6(23awg) is as small as I’d go, and even then, you’re using both color pairs per stepper color. blue/white blue to blue, etc. If it were me, I’d just use either 16 or 18 gauge stepper wire.

3

My steppers use 22 gauge wire…

4

Weird. Mine uses 18!

5

If you try it make sure it is stranded wire. Most telephone wire is solid and will break in no time.

6

Good point, use patch cables, not the stuff you get on the spools at box stores.

7

I just over-nighted 20/4 from amazon. Got 100ft for $13 bucks one day shipping.

8

I spent several days fooling around with cat6, cat3, etc. Couldn’t get a decent connection with the punchdown blocks. I suspect the insulation on the stepper motor wires that I got was a little too thick to make a good cut.

Ended up buying shielded, 4 strand, 22 awg wire for security system. It is exactly perfect, and I even hooked up both the JTP laser and cooling fan on the same run. Used 22awg crimped butt splicers for the connections, and 4-pin LED lighting connectors (you can buy a 10-pack of make/female pairs for about $5 from amazon) for quick disconnect.

You can actually buy 4-strand LED wire as well. I got a spool, but it’s flat and not shielded. So it doesn’t behave as nicely.

Also, drilled 5/8" holes in the top of my x/y center axes about 2" from each end. Threaded the wire to the opposite end through the conduit and out the top hole to the motor. Nice and neat, and now there are only three moving attachment points for wiring (X,Y,Z) as opposed to X1,X2, Y1,Y2, Z. So the X/Y wires go into ONE end of the conduit, only.

1 Like
9

hello,

i’m studying a lowrider with nema 17 motor and i expect to use utp cat6 4p 23awg wire for the stepper motor

a pair of phone cable for for 1 cable of the motor

i m not english speaker i dont really understand the answer that has been give in this topic

so is it ok yes or no

thanks a lot

10

Yes, as long as it is stranded wire.

11

I used phone cable wiring (the flat kind that goes from the wall jack to the back of the phone). So far it works…but I have only done drawings less than 30 minutes long. I did solder each connection (tape and shrink wrap also). I know it isn’t recommended but I wanted to use what I had on hand (I need the “Boss” / VP of Operations / Event Planner / Spousal Unit to approve other things on the build).