Wire Harness and Routing suggestions for Delta Printer.
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Hi all! I'm currently in the process of Upgrading my Rostock Max V2 to a full duet, high precision Monster. I'm doing the Duet Wifi, Smart Effector, pt100 daughter board, 0.9 degree steppers in the towers, a 500 Watt AC Bed Heater (SSR controlled) and a full 24V upgrade for everything else.
I Just finished swapping out the stepper motors and pulling out the old PSU. Now I'm looking at cleaning up my wire routing and seeing what, if any, wires I have to add/replace/etc... A quick look at the wiki shows that I should need right at 12 separate wires to connect to and control all the features of the Smart Effector. I currently have 10 available. My initial thought is to just run a new long cable for the Heat Cartridge (I already have 2 separate cables run for the e3D PT-100 sensor). Since I'm upgrading to a 24v system, I purchased e3d's new 24v/40W Premium cable (Green! ). It comes with a nice long cable that is still about 2 meter's short. Is it Ok to just extend it with 18-20 gauge wires from the top of the printer? (I'm already basically doing that for a 12v/40w standard cartridge, so I'm not overly concerned about it)
Anyway, the fact that I have to run 2 new lines to meet the wiring requirements got me thinking about finally adding on an external wire routing channel up the back side of the Z tower. It Gives me the option for heavier gauge wire and easier upgrade-ability down the road (Should I decide to add a filament sensor or, god help me, dual extrution! )
My Questions are :
1.) Given that I'm running from the bottom of the printer, to the top, and need enough to reach almost back to bottom, how heavy should I go? Personally, I think It's better to go heavier whenever given the option and would be fine just running everything as 18-20 gauge stranded copper. My only reason for going lighter gauge would be due to the heavier gauge having a negative effect on something (like the probing or pt100 sensor, which I know can be a bit finicky to those kinds of things.)
2.) Should I be running all wires to the effector in a single bundle, or even in close proximity, all the way from board to board? Is there any chance of interference I should have to worry about?
or
3.) Should I just run the 2 extra for the heater and use what I've got? It's been running my current setup just fine, but it's not the prettiest thing ever when I pull a panel off and that severely bugs my OCD! lol
I'm not in any super big hurry to get it back together. I Ordered a Keenovo AC heater pad and probably have 2-3 weeks at the very minimum before that arrives. In the mean time I just want to get everything spliced together, tested and good to go so that the bed heat is no more than a 5 minute install, when it gets here.
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I recommend that you put the low voltage wires (the ones that go to the 8-way connector) and higher voltage wires (the ones that go to the 6-way connector) in separate cables. It reduces the possibility of mis-wiring, and reduces the transmission of noise from the heater and fan wires to the PT100 wires.
18-20 awg is overkill and will add to the weight carried by the effector. I use two 8-way unshielded multicore cables of this type https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/multicore-industrial-cable/6604052 on my delta. I use 2 conductors in it for each of the 2 heater wires.
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Thanks for the response! Been hot out here the last few days so I haven't been getting much done on my upgrade. (Will probably be a few weeks before my custom bed heater arrives, so no big hurry, I guess).
The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards just running with the wires I have and running a couple new wires for the hot end heater. The wires I got are already the right size and run in separate bundles up the center of individual towers, making it easy to keep them isolated.
Should I run an additional 2 wires to turn my e3D PT-100 into a 4 wire connection? I saw how someone else accomplished this and it was basically putting a Y split on the 2 PT-100 wires. At that point it didn't look like it made a difference whether that split was done at the Smart effector or the daughterboard. Or is the Smart Effector essentialy handling the split in it it's circuit trace?
Should I leave it as a 2 wire connection all the way to the daughter board, would I need to solder/bridge the pads next to the PT-100 Connector on the smart effector that say "jumpered for 2 wire"?
At this point, It's not a lot of effort to run an extra 2 wires for the PT-100 with the 2 I already had to do that for. Is there really any appreciable benefit to doing so? (fwiw, the AC heating pad I have coming will have an integrated 4-wire pt-100 sensor all wired up and ready to go.)
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The Smart Effector handles the transition from a 2-wire PT100 to 4 wires running to the Duet. The advantage of the 4 wire connection is that the resistance of the wires between the effector and the Duet won't affect the reading. With a 2-wire connection, each ohm of resistance will increase the reading by 2.5C.