I know this is a super unsupported idea but my machine has long outlived the warranty, so it’s time to play with it outside of factory config.
I am placing the nomad in a dedicated enclosure and I want to place the control board outside of the enclosure. I was wondering if the C3D folks had any “gotchas” to look out for when extending the various cable lengths (probably adding ~1 meter at most)
My main concern would be added EMI sensitivity on the stepper motors from the longer lengths. None of the current harnesses have specific protections against this (twisted pairs, shielding, ferrite, etc…) but I’m not sure if that’s because it’s simply not necessary at the current lengths.
So, any suggestions for adding some length to the various cables? I’m relatively experienced with electronics and soldering in general so feel free to suggest whatever you like, regardless of required skill set/necessary equipment.
I’m sure she’s just investigating to see what could have caused this mess…
UPDATE:
My wife has informed me that even if the cat was responsible, which to be clear, there is no way of knowing for sure…it would still be my fault by way of negligence on my part.
Upon consideration, much to my dismay, I am inclined to agree with her.
UPDATE 2:
While helping the wife put away groceries I came back to this
To which my wife immediately responded “You left them again? Even after what happened the first time? That’s crazy behavior.”
She also pointed out that the first wires were thoroughly mixed while this time, they were all simply shifted over. So it is likely not the same culprit.
I’m starting to think she may not be on my side in this
Almost done. The extensions have all been spliced in with heat shrink on the individual strands and then heat shrunk again with some interesting water proof heat shrink tube used for 10mm wide led strip connections. (Light a fountain or little pond…stuff like that)
Next time I’m just retrofitting these wires with Ethernet cable and converting everything to rj45
Tyler, is that the lined heatshrink with the meltable inner layer? I’ve used such in the past too.
Early in the Nomad story, when there were random glitches in the movement, for troubleshooting I took the Arduino board out of the loop and controlled the stepper drivers directly through a parallel port on my PC (step and direction). Those forum photos are long gone but I found a couple on my PC
I don’t think that’s quite what you are doing, but the Frankensteined arrangement itself didn’t introduce any wonkiness–the glitches were in the detail design of the stepper driver board itself…
Yeah the heat shrink sounds as you described. There’s a meltable material lining the inner tube, feels and acts like hot glue.
I’m not having issues with this one (seems a decade or so of experience has worked out some bugs at Carbide HQ ) I just want to put the machine in an enclosure and keep the controller external.
The main reason being sound dampening but I’ve also got some other shenanigans planned with the enclosure assuming my wiring works
Quick update, over lunch I wired up the controller and gave it a quick initialization and spindle warm up. All seems well with about a meter added to all cables with little to no concern for emi!
I haven’t done anything to validate accuracy yet but I’d have a hard time believing we’ll drop anything under load…should know for sure this weekend though
) I just want to put the machine in an enclosure and keep the controller external.
