My Shapeoko XXL is housed in a dust enclosure at the left hand rear corner of my shed, so the control board is right at the back and difficult to reach.
I would like to bring it towards the front, but mount it on the shed wall (it’s about 5 inches away - the wall, I mean), essentially turning it through 180 degrees, horizontally.
I appreciate I will need to reverse the way the drag chain operates - which doesn’t look too complicated - but I think the benefits will outweight the work involved, i.e:
Easy access (my enclosure doesn’t lend itself to human visitors of my size!)
Much shorter USB and low voltage power cables,
Easier to manage cables for the BitZero and BitSetter,
I really don’t like it being at the back (There, I’ve said it!)
Has anyone else tried and succeeded in doing this, please?
I can’t speak for reversing the drag chain but I’m sure there is a way you can make that work.
I did move my control board roughly about a foot and it is mounted on the outside of my enclosure. You may find that you have enough slack in the wires to move it to an acceptable area without changing the drag chain around.
Some in the past have also commented how you need to properly ground the control board after it is moved if it is not attached to the metal rail. I did not do any additional grounding and I have had no issues but you may run into this.
I did this with my S3! I moved the control board outside the enclosure. No big deal just make sure you ground everything properly.
I used 4 conductor shielded wire for the steppers and the limit switches. I used the shield wire as a drain for static at each stepper location and have also sense added BitRunner.
So, I’ve bitten the bullet and decided to move the control panel and wall mount it to the front of the machine, but I need to extend the stepper motor and proximity switch cables. No problem there!
What I need to know, though, is what brass Molex pin connectors do I need to buy? I’m assuming I can use the same plugs/sockets, but (I think) I would prefer to solder the pins to the wires, rather than clamp them. The Molex link of the Shapeoko Wiki page doesn’t work
but unfortunately the decent ones I picked up at Radio Shack seem to no longer be available (but it looks as if there are some other inexpensive ones available now which might be okay — anyone got any experience to share?)
For the 3D scanning probe project I needed to make something that would go onto the probe port (so the small kind, 3 pin). I got a < $20 kit on amazon and … WHAT A PAIN IN THE ****.
Clearly my level of fine hand control is not up to this quality of tool. The lucky part is that the kit I got also came with a couple of dozen pre-crimped 4" wires and I just used those and bridged (cough solder + heatshrink) to the long wire I wanted to use.
I was thinking of doing that, if I couldn’t find out what connectors to use, but the existing stepper motor and proximity switch cabling doesn’t appear to be shielded - and I don’t really want to replace the cables and lose the opportunity to use better (shielded) cabling!
Does anyone know if these or these are the right ones, please?
unless you find shielded molex connectors… the shielding is going to end somewhere near the board. It’ll be 0.1 or 0.5" away from it… so using the existing connector is not impossible. you can even put some of the shielding mesh over your solder weld to the connector inside the heatshrink as long as you connect that mesh to the overall wire’s mess.
shielding for the stepper motor wires is to keep the EMC in, shielding for the limit switches is to keep the EMC out.
for the motors, the actual molex is in the metal cage that is the electronics enclosure, so if you look only to the part of the stepper wire thats outside that… it gives you room
(remember to connect the shielding mesh to the outside enclosure directly or indirectly (via ground)
Whew! For a horrible minute I thought the cables were hard-wired directly into the stepper motors and limit switches! Thankfully, there are plugs/sockets at each end?
Yes, that’s the same as mine - a pair for each of the stepper motors.
It looks like the’X’ and ‘Y’ proximity switches are wired from the switch to the connector though, so it looks like these will need to be extended. The ‘Z’ proximity switch has an extension lead, though.
I’ve just spent the last couple of hours trying to find suppliers in the UK - with stock - of Molex connectors and terminals so I can make up replacement leads and make extension leads for the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ proximity switches, as these are wired directly into the motor housings.
And then I got to thinking…
Why don’t I just extend the existing cables by cutting the plugs off, leaving a tail so I can ‘insert’ a length of cable in the cut (a bit of butchery, granted) or remove the pins from the plug, get some male anf female connectors, and make up extension leads that way?
My only concern would be ESD, but I don’t think the existing cables are screened anyway?
Does anyone have any thoughts on this approach, please?
It’s for sure worth trying. The switches work based on “open” or “closed” (e.g. conductivity) which is a tad less sensitive to EMC than a pure digital style signal
I did look for some of these, but there quite rare in the UK/EU, and I didn’t realise just how many different Molex plug and socket options there are. Strewth!
