yeah, wires… I probably need some of those too. If I don’t have to make the jst plugs with crimpers, that will save some time. I spent a lot of time doing that with the mpcnc.
A small pick works really well for pushing the small wires into the back of the little connector housings.
The struggle was getting the crimped end on without dropping it. My crimper didn’t fit with the pin on the reel, so I had to take each one off the reel, hold them, feed in the wire and crimp it without dropping the pin. the crimp time certainly improved with practice, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
I have to take the pins off too.
What I do is put the pin in the crimper first.
I put the pin in with my right hand and the crimper in my left so I can more easily line it up. Then I squeeze the handle so it clicks once. This squeezes the pin just enough to hold the pin in the crimper.
Then I put the crimper in my right hand. Then push the wire in from the side and squeeze the handle the rest of the way; finish the crimp.
It is the way.
I would give anything to find a better solution. The first 100-200 SETS of wires I crimped by hand…I have a deep hate for doing it.
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Don’t know if what am trying out is better, but am using 3D printed part to shroud and secure Dupont to Dupont connections using a strip of male pin headers that help extend stepper cables. Am using 12" pre crimped dupont cables (nicer than average, 22AWG).
Not ideal, have some ideas, but that’s another project I should probably not get into just yet…
Yeah I have been thinking about that. I am building a custom LR3 right now and I want a easy disconnect for the side YZ panels. That might be the best bet.
LR3 built for suitcase travel?
If you already having to splice and crimp wires near the YZ plates, would you use JST, or Molex Micro Fit 3mm (BTT’s EBB uses these for Power + CANBus), am starting to like them.
Doing a wire to wire connection? Or, given how much space is available on outside of YZ plates could have connector/shroud mounted to YZ plate, enabling opportunity for better strain relief (e.g. velcro/zipties threaded through additional YZ plate slots/holes) so not all of the strain is on the connector and wire-ends/crimps.
Hmmm that might be cool.
I keep looking at it and I think just labeling the wires to the control board real good will be the cleanest. That also lets me take the board off the back of the beam for shipping.
I have my red one from RMMR sitting here, I need to prep it to ship and I am building another. So I have two to experiment with. (really want to try some steel cutting though…Sundays are my play days)
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I use plugs similar to the molex ones. If I have more than one set of wire connections going to the same place, then I flip the connector on one set so that the male and female plugs are opposite each other between the two sets.
For instance, if I have 2- two wire fans that I need to splice a connector to, one fan will have a male connector, the other fan will have a female connector.
That way when I’m plugging everything in, it’s impossible for me to plug the wrong fan into the wrong plug.
Technically, you could plug the two fans into each other and the two outputs into each other, but I’ve never done that.
I only do this on things I’m plugging / unplugging regularly.
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Choices…those molex are very clean.
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All Good information. Thanks for sharing. Another possibly obvious question or a request for doc update and I realize this may be nitpicky, but it helps for those of us (maybe just me) who are doing this for the first time and really not wanting to screw it up:
A couple points of clarification for me:
- the above screen shot lists 2 pulleys , 2 smooth idlers, 6 toothed idlers. This appears to be only for the coreXY (?) mechanism since with 5 motors, I would expect 5 pulleys. Is this the total for the entire system? Can we specify how many for each mechanism: corexy and z axis?
- The belt calculation shows how to get to the total length, but I don’t see anywhere recommending length of each location. While I realize this is subject to user-selected size, it should be a simple adder to the dimension. Is it simply line it up and cut it a little long? I read about someone cutting short and I have just enough total length without ordering more.
I’m happy to update the docs if that would be helpful after doing this. The hope is I won’t have to order and wait for more belt.
also, what is the recommended bolt head type for each of the bolts listed in the printer build?
Printed parts are appearing… it might be another month or two before it starts reprinting its own parts…
For M3 and smaller am finding Phillips head bolts easier to snug/torque up without them stripping. Have gone through multiple cheap weak M3 Allen keys for this build, so decent ones recommended. Hand screwed, no power tools for M3 and smaller. For hex head M5’s holding frame together I may have use impact driver.
Small thing, but found that last minute ordered parts ended up needing different driver bits for Phillips/crosshead bolts when ordered from various companies. Some of my M3 bolts need PH2 or PH1, some need posidriv, etc… Really needed to pay attention when torquing up to ensure right driver used and head isn’t stripped. Allocating time to bulk order up front from single supplier could have maybe worked out simpler, definitely cheaper.
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Yes. You need 5 pulleys.
Yes. I mounted one end of the belt, then stretched it out and cut to length. I guess it could be calculated for each piece. The 3 Z’s should be the same. The two XY belts should be close to the same.
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Buy a single GOOD set of allen keys. It’s worth the investment.
I have a full set of Bondhus T handles. Sadly, the T handle doesn’t fit into some spots (like up against the extrusion), but works great for initial assembly.
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Whoops, I will fix that.
You can feed it through and yes cut it a little long. It is pretty easy to do on all the axes. Same way we do it on all the builds.
Pan head, phillips or hex (I have far less issues with phillips).
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I bought the mini molex…I want that clean look. You guys are a bad influence 