Page 1 of 1

Some Photos to give other makers some ideas

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:30 am
by mawa
Here are some photos of my almost finished LitePlacer. Maybe they can aid other makers how to place the cables. I modified the photos.

I used a 12 wire chainflex cable material from the gantry to the connector box and 8/12/16 pin connectors with 12/12/16 shielded cables to the TinyG.
Liteplacer overview
Liteplacer overview
DSC04011S.jpg (96.53 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
The Y toolchain is running below the X Motor. That gives an optimal routing for the vacuum tube to the pump and brings the cables directly in front of the connection boxed. Power and sensors connection are strickly separated
Right hand side view
Right hand side view
DSC04012S.jpg (101.75 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
All cables are bundled in two connection boxes. The smaller box connects the switches. The larger box the motors, pump, solenoid and LEDs.
Connection boxes
Connection boxes
DSC04013S.jpg (101.28 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
The Gantry from the top
Gantry top view
Gantry top view
DSC04014S.jpg (93.31 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
The upper black cable is the motor/solenoid and LED Downlight and the lower beige cable connects the switches.
The two cable clamps (home brewed btw) hold down the cable and connect their shield to the gantry assembly.
Closeup view gantry cable distribution
Closeup view gantry cable distribution
DSC04015S.jpg (105.04 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
Here the gantry from the right top side
Gantry top right side view
Gantry top right side view
DSC04016S.jpg (116.85 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
Some little tips:

Don't forget to place the Reset-Button of the TinyG in an easy accesible location. You will need to press it many times during setup.
Its the white button on the front of the TinyG housing. I will probably add an additional "big red button". Pressing Reset up to now halts the machine immediately.
The safety power breaker is for a real emergency case and breaks the power line to the TinyG power supply.

To keep the wires in the grooves I cut a small piece of 1mm PVC plastic sheet. Bending it U shaped allowes inserting into to the groove. The piece then straightens itself and prevents the cable/wires from popping out of the groove.

Insert the cables and the vacuum tube in the toolchains BEFORE mounting the chain. Otherwise it takes a lot of time pushing and guiding the cables around the bent toolchain.

To keep the cable bundle behind the X Motor plate up high above the rear Y limit switch I added (glued) a suspension hook to hold up the bundle. Maybe the x motor plate could be extended for that purpose in future.

Re: Some Photos to give other makers some ideas

Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2015 8:23 am
by mawa
I reworked the images of my post. Now you can see them in normal 800x600 size.

Re: Some Photos to give other makers some ideas

Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2015 6:01 pm
by WayOutWest
Wow, very professional looking!

Juha, you might want to maintain a list of links to photos of assembled liteplacers at the start of the assembly instructions. There were a few (not many) steps where I found myself hunting around for a photo showing the angle I wanted to see. Threads like this would have helped.