I have just run the Hello World successfully and also the clamps project. I have a Standard S03
Both seemed to go fine but it is now obvious that the mounting of the Controller board enclosure on the x gantry is not ideal…twice cables got caught although with no effect on the cut itself. I have now decided that the enclosure has to move to the y rail as appears to be the case with the XL & XXL.
One issue is the need to extend some of the wiring to fit the new location and I wonder is the wiring in the expansion packs replace the existing wiring or if they are designed to be plugged in to existing wiring as extensions.
If they are extensions would I be better using those (if Carbide 3d will sell them separately) or buying the plugs and making my own and/or rewiring in one length from the steppers? Personally I’d rather not pull the stepper apart to rewire especially if it requires soldering inside. I am a graduate of the school that says “if you cannot fix it with a hammer then it is an electrical problem”
I just did what I should have done before and did a search and I will probably get the appropriate connectors and make up extensions as needed. I am not about to open up the motors to do a single run extension.
Anyone who has done this relocation have any tips or warnings?
My big thing is, if bothering to do this is to remove the motor wiring from the drag chains, coil it neatly by the motors, fasten it to the plates, and secure the connectors so that they can’t move. I’d also be sure to use the same length wiring extension (even if it means a bit of additional coiling) on the two Y-axis motors (keeping the resistance the same for both is better from an electronics standpoint).
One of these days, when I upgrade my machine I want to get 400 step / rev. motors which have connectors on the housing, but no wires, then I’ll have a straight run from the motors to the controller.
No drag chains on my SO3 and maybe that is why there is a problem. In part it will be because I have not set my machine up in its permanent location and I keep swapping power and laptop from side to side depending where I am using it…currently the dining table but now my wife is home so I guess she will have other ideas.
Maybe I also need to go the drag chain route and I see some listers seem to have wider drag chains and also relocate those to prevent catches.
I’ll get some 18-4 stranded wire(my son owns an alarm company) and molex connectors and just make up extensions for now and look to do something more permanent once I have my enclosure sorted.
I don’t want to spend all my time altering the machine…I have chips to make
My SO3 that I bought this summer didn’t come with drag chains, maybe the same case here. I assume they are only including them on the XL and XXL models now. That or I was either blind or got shortchanged.
Correct. With the shorter wire runs afforded by putting the electronics on the back of the gantry on the SO3, no drag chains needed. Moving them creates the need for them, so one ought to add them, or work up some other form of cable management, see: https://wiki.shapeoko.com/index.php/Cable_Management
Thanks for the confirmation. I had figured as much. The only things that could really use the drag chain are the power and USB cables. I just mounted an arm at the back of the machine to hold them up out of the way. We have a couple of older SO3 machines and they came with the drag chain, so I was a little surprise it wasn’t included in the new one.
Back to the topic at hand, I moved the electronics to the outside of the enclosure on one of our other machines. It’s mounted to the top of the enclosure, so I just put enough slack in the cable bundle to reach all the corners of travel and it works well.
WilliamAdams…you are not going to be popular with my wife if you keep giving me good stuff on the wiki to read. I’ll have a read up about cable management this weekend. She wants me to build a raised garden so hopefully we get rain…YEAH RIGHT! Maybe a bit of bedtime reading will be permissible. I really need to sit down and go through the Wiki in more depth and stop asking questions for which the answer is probably there.
Actually you will probably be doubly unpopular as it is almost certain to lead to “uncontrollable expenditure” on items she will deem to be"totally unnecessary".
To be honest she is actually quite understanding given that she is a Ceramics Teacher and we did built a complete studio with 3 phase power in our new home.
For the raised garden, if you haven’t yet (and your locality allows it) put in a rain barrel.
I will note that my own drag chain solution on that page was just a couple of dollars (large zip ties and some molded cable covers). If money is tight, drop me a PM, I have some drag chain left over from my SO2 days which I’m never going to use and will gladly send you.
You may want to look into: https://farm.bot/ — the Opensource Ecology folks have some pretty interesting things as well.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far with this:
For a long while now I’ve been meaning to try to work up some sort of window garden setup which could be easily machined on a Shapeoko (or possibly even Nomad) — something else for when I retire.
Envious of the ceramics studio! I’m guessing that includes a kiln? Have you considered / is it an option to use it for metalworking?
Will…there is no way I am showing those links to “Er Indoors”. I can just see her wanting to turn the S03 in to an automatic waterer(Farm Bot). Also she has an inflated idea of my abilities and I am sure she will want a Grow Garden to replace the Pallet Herb Garden she just attached to the fence. The planned raised garden is a tad larger than a rain barrel - its 2.7m long and half a meter wide and is intended to take 3 Hibiscus plants as screening to the BBQ deck. My raised vege garden is 3m x 2m.
Thanks for the offer and advice re Drag Chains…I’ll keep it in mind after my reading this weekend.
Ceramics studio includes 2 kilns!! We plan to offload those and get one new one and then maybe I will get to play with it
