I'm getting samples next week from IGUS for their chainflex, and at $1.10 a foot, no minimum order or cut charge I can't complain. Beats buying a whole spool and its made specifically for our use.

Brian, I'm planning a 14' table, which will require about 400' of cable. If I order 500' at 350 dollars that will be 90 dollars less than the igus and give me a hundred feet of spare. Additionally, the alpha wire is specifically made for continuious motion, robotic and extreme high flex use. I am however interested in what you decide to go with and why. Are you sold on the braid, the availibilty of larger 20 or 18 guage or is it the igus name? Let me know, after you receive the samples, which specific cable you choose.
Thanks:):)

I understand, you need quite a bit. I'm sure you could get a better price on a spool though with Igus. Will keep posted which I go with but I'm almost certain it will be the chainflex from Igus. They had me sold on availability, prompt response and support, pricing and the quality of the cables they produce. Never used their cables before, just the carriers so I'm anxious to see the samples of the exact cable I want to use.

Brian, Thanks for your responses... Did you talk with igus directly or one of their distributors? Can you supply me with a specific Igus product number? I'd like to call them and see what kind of pricing I can get. Do you have a phone number or an individual you think I should speak with? Thanks again...

Mike,

I spoke with the local sales rep for my area which is the best person to speak with, check out their map on their site and see who your local rep is and call them directly. Inquire about pricing and samples if you want to play with the cable in hand, tell them your application and get any feedback you can. I've inquired about the CF140, and the CF140US, one having euro certification and one having us. Its a 4c 18ga shielded/braided cable.

Brian, Thanks for the information. I spoke with a gentleman at Igus today, and it looks like I might have to call your local rep because the prices quoted to me are much higher. For less than five hundred feet of the 4 conductor, shielded, 20 gauge chainflex I was quoted $1.87 per foot, for five hundred feet the price is $1.72 per foot. Often, manufacturers will not under cut their distributors and that may be what’s going on here. I had them quote the 20 awg. thinking it would be less expensive but in retrospect this may not be true if they manufacture more of the 18 awg. Bob at Igus is sending me a sample and was very helpful so I’ll give them serious consideration but at 2.7 times the cost of the alpha wire mentioned above its not likely. Thanks for your help.

Np, never hurts to shop around! Here is a copy and paste from the local sales rep for an official RFQ I received. With Igus there is no minimum order quantity and up to 10 cuts free of the same cable.

They post current pricing on their site online too. Maybe he misquoted you? Was it indeed CF140 because CF140 is the cheapest of its class, they go up fast in price accordingly. But get the sample and play with it, the braided screen is so strong, without a relief cut along the cable to peel back the jacket you cannot pull it off it is so strong and the cable itself is super flexible. I like the conductor coding system too, having all black conductor insulation and just number coding each conductor.

Note: I had missed the note on their spec sheets prior to requesting the sample in regards to a ground/bonding/pe wire being included in the conductor counts. So a 4c18ga is really 3 conductors numbered and 1 yellow/green striped ground. Debating whether or not to just go with 4C and tube that conductor black as well (since not using a ground for 4 wire stepper motors) or to order a 5C18ga and snip the ground back and do it proper.

Guys, please guard against repeating quotations out here on a public forum, because this sometimes results in the big corporate clamping down on distributors who sell cheap.

Sorry Gerald. I tried to remove it. Btw this is not a quote from a distributor this is from corporate, IGUS sells directly.

Brian, the above stuff is not serious enough to start deleting yet - I just wanted to put a general note to everyone to be careful with comparing prices in public.

Gerald,

I understand your concern, will be a bit more careful with it.

Gerald, Sorry - I'll keep all mention of prices to private email. My apologies to Brian also, it seems when I misbehave I insist on dragging good people with me.

:D no worries we are all friends here. All I will say though is I'm thoroughly impressed with Igus's service and products. Can't wait to order a spool of this stuff.

I will say I have had impeccable customer service from Igus in the past. Good to hear. They also have a great website that allows you to download all other their products in 2d and 3d dxf drawing files. Very helpful.
Sean

Hi all - i recently had a cable (same on my Mechmate) put on a machine which I help to revive (victor cnc) some folks might have seen it on the cnczone -

now what has happened is that the cable has started to give up - shorts and cuts and all that.

I know that the small radius has caused this - so when I asked lapp to give me a suitable cable they guided me towards FD series - wow! that cable unscreened is like 7.5USD per meter.

the question is for short radius - do i need to get that sort of cable - or there are suitable quality substitutes - ??

Irfan, the cable chain and the cables must be compatible - you need to find a balance between the radius of the cable chain/carrier and the bend radius of the cable itself. I think your problem is caused by the small radius of your chain?

Just got a quote from a Lapp distributer in the USA for 2 cables:
4 Core 1.00 mm2 [18 AWG] 100' P/N 1136204 $ 5.02/ft
7 core 0.5 mm2 [21 AWG]100' P/N 1136107 $ 7.34/ft

Ouch! I should have known when the guy called in response to my e-mail, and took a day to work up a quote, that I was going to get bent. Oh yeah, 8 week delivery time.

Also seeing 25' lengths of 18/4cy NuFlex 1000 Shielded Flexible Control Cable(http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT) for $1.84/ft on E-Bay.

Not familiar with the brand, but the price seems reasonable. A lot of dealers on E-Bay seem to want to sell 1000ft spools. Most of the items that look like they might work are off-brand. Does brand matter? The Skycraft Surplus store seems to only have coaxial cable. I did notice that Quest uses shielded 21/7 when they install phone lines. I cut off a piece from a spool I buried, and although its not very flexible, it is well shielded. It's got to be cheaper than $5/ft.

a link to a shielded cable supplier.
http://www.action-electronics.com/wirecable.htm
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCNoise.html

Hi guys,

Just got off the phone to the NZ rep for lapp cables and he told me that using the 115c cable would not be wise in drag chain as over time the conductors would brake. Has any one found this with the cable they have been using and if now how much time has your cable been flexing for?

thanks
jestah

I don't think you MUST use Lapp cable, you would probly have a better chance walking into any electrical/electronics hardware shop & ask for "CY cable", you need 18 AWG (or 1mm2)4-core CY cable.

Jestah, that rep for the cable was just feeding you salestalk. Any cable can be used in a drag chain - it depends on radius of bend and number of cycles. Some hi-tech machinery out there move fast and through tight corners, while our MechMate is a plodder by comparison.

Those that need cable.

I will go to Skycraft and talk with them about seeing if they can find a source of the cable that Josh just bought. It is 4 wire foil shielded at a price of $0.30 a foot. The also have 7 wire foil shielded for $0.35 a foot. This is the kind of wire that Sean and I have used and I believe a couple other builders have used. It may take them some time to find it. As they like to remind me when I am looking for stuff, they are a surplus store.

I will get back with you.

Nils,
Double check, I think 18/4 with foil also had the braided shield as well. I seem to remember extending that braided shield via soldered jumper!

"how's the mailbox? My truck misses it! LOL

I need enough for a standard setup on a 50" x 100" table if you can find it :)

I will make it a point to visit today and see what they have left and what they can do to buy more. Yesterday was not a good day for a visit.

Steve,

You need to determine how much wire you want. The amount varies based on the location of the controller box to the table. You want to have no breaks between the motor connector and the controller box.

So you need the length for the motors, proximity sensors and the push buttons. I can also provide 14/3 shield power cable to run to the router / spindle.

Steve,

I have some bad news. They have less than 50' of the 18 ga 4 shielded wire. I even looked for 18 ga 5, 6 or 7 shielded wire without any success. I will check with them when I stop in.

They do have 14/3 shield wire for power cord to spindle around .38 a ft.

They also have 20 ga 7 shielded wire.

Thanks for all your trouble Nills...

Here is what I need...

42 feet of 2 core 20 ga
42 feet of 7 core 20 ga
140 feet of 4 core 18 ga (if all one length)
35 feet of 3 core 14 ga

I looked on skycrafts website but it lists almost nothing... If they had it I could just call them and pay for it....

Thanks again
Steve

Steve have you figured in Proximity switches? When I was there I didnt notice any 2 core shielded but I believe I read that you can use the 4 core and slice 2 get 1.

Russell I have not gotten that far :)

I was just thinking that this stuff is hard to find, at a good price, and as long as the surplus store had some I might as well purchase what they had and get the rest later...

Nils made a good point about measuring the machine ( In a PM ) and making sure I had enough.. So I am going to follow his advice and wait a bit....

Looking for cable and wondered what core size I should get for my limits and homing switches and if its ok to run a bundle inside a single shield or if each pair needs a shield. It seems like you guys are using a single 5+ core for this task but wanted to double check.

Nills are you going to go to that store anytime soon? I picked up almost everything I needed, here in Houston, with the exception of the 7 core 20 ga and the 2 core 20 ga... I figured I could use 4 core in place of the 2 core so I am only needing the 7 core cable...

Would you have a stock number for the wire you picked up?

Cable
 

Can someone give there opinion on this wire...
http://www.oselectronics.com/ose_p46.htm
You need to scoll down on the page to see the shielded cable

They are too thin, the "standard" here is 18AWG or 1mm2 wires when using 4.5A motor current.

I read in a previous post from Gerald that he was going to recommend down grading the wire size to 21g when using motors in the 2-3 amp range. My system will be using a 35VDC power supply with the Gecko 540 driver and the PK296A2A-SG7.2 Oriental Motor. Will that wire be to small then?

Steve, it depends. If you google "awg wire current" you'll find some useful pages.
for 22AWG, one table gives 7A as a "chassis wiring" number. However, comparing that to the conservative standards we use for house wiring, you'll see that the "chassis wiring" numbers run about twice the NEC numbers (41 for 12AWG vs 20, ... ). So it appears that 3.5A from the G540 is within range for 22AWG, assuming that the wire is in good shape. However, the wire will be flexed over time, and you won't have a lot of excess safety margin.

Would using a cable with more than 7 cores be a good Idea? I think that 7 cores are all used with the proxies and I would not have a core for the Z height setting or any other low voltage applications...

I found this wire with 12 cores.

Is it worth using more cores?

Without looking at your spec sheet, consider that you have to watch for the allowed bending radius when the cable flexes in the chain.

This wire is rated for a bend radius of 4 x diameter... That's pretty tight :)

If you read carefully, you are going to find that 4 x diameter applies to a static installation......flexed once in its life only.