MakerBot Industries

Awesome, thanks!

Oh and for the Thermocouple… can I just run it down to my centralized hub area where I will put something like a pheonix connector (those green connectors like on the EC), and then from there, back to the EC, use just regular copper wire?

In practice, I think it works ok. The best way to know is using your non contact thermometer to ensure the reported temp is near the actual temp. In reality, even if that was off, you could compensate by just changing the set temp in your start.gcode and the skeinforge plugin too. It's just about knowing where you are and what worked before.

Cool… thanks Jetguy!

Thanks for the info Ed.

Ideally, that is what I wanted to do… have one big connector, kind of like a motherboard power supply connector. Maybe I could actually do that… use a motherboard connector?

Of course there is probably something horribly wrong with that idea, that I am just not seeing yet.

Sorry Ed, I didn't mean too be brand specific because yes, in my Electric RC helis, I have used both Anderson and Dean's and they both work well. Any local hobby shop should have one or the other brand.

use a motherboard connector?

You'd run out of pins pretty quickly: 4 steppers = 16, temperature sensors = 2 + 3 = 5, heaters = 4, fans = 2, LED power = 2, forgotten stuff = ?.

More than two dozen pins, that's for sure.

something horribly wrong with that idea

I'd keep the thermocouple and thermistor wiring out of that block entirely or, perhaps, put them at one end away from the stepper wires.

Wire routing would be an issue, as you'd get a massive bundle behind the printer-side connector and an equally massive bundle on the controller side. Right now they're sort of flopped all over the place and you (well, I) can squash the bottom in place; a pair of big bundles might have too much bulk in one spot.

Other than that, it sounds like a win.

Ok then… two mother board connectors! :]

Right now, I have about 80% of my wires running down the back right of my ToM…. I think it will be all right. Besides, I do this for a living:

Cable management is in my blood! ;P

Personally I like bullet connectors, they are extremely quick and easy to solder, and not a total mare to plug and unplug. Also if you forget to put the heatshrink on before soldering its not such a hassle to get it on afterwards.

edit: my opinion may be biased against deans connectors having had to work with some extremely stiff ones.