@Daniel. Initially, I plan to use the Air cooled Spindle I already have with the Dominator when I receive it. If this Z-Chain is available at the time for the Dominator I plan to use it. I eventually plan to upgrade to the ATC. With that said, I would think I would still like to have the 18X50 so I could use it with the ATC later.
Also, I would love to see the ability to attach something to this setup that would allow me to keep my 4" Dust collection hose out of the way. I have the Dust boot V12(4").
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You brought up a very good point with those wanting to switch from water/air to an atc.
I’ll need to add an option to only receive the “ATC” base by itself since I currently have this product setup as two packages… water or ATC… totally forgot about upgraders. Thank you for bringing this up.
That is also a great point on the chain size different. If i stick with the 18x50 chains, there is less parts differences and thus you wouldn’t have to buy the z-chain product twice just to upgrade from one to the other.
I’ll do my very best to get the 18x50 chains working with air… that way only the motor base part is different when switching.
Oh that’s a fine idea… i’m thinking of maybe some chain attachment points for a hose over top the chain. I’ll need to do some testing as the added weight on a flexible chain may make it sit weird.
Our Ultimate Hose Clamp with it’s 80mm base can hold the hose once the hose snakes its way down to the boot… but from the top of the spindle to your extraction system… I could see it snaking up and over using the chain as a guide.
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Hey Daniel, hey all,
I would always offer a third, really big drag chain variant.
I was thinking about the required size when discussing with Adam @adamfenn28, because Adam said the 18 x 50 mm would be big enough for a compressed air, water-cooled ATC spindle. But I had seen in Adams drag chain video that he lets the wires and hoses run loosely inside the drag chain. This is not recommended, what I planned was to force all wires and hoses into a sort of fork at every direction change. I remember @TMToronto showed his 100 mm drag chain here, where he also implemented the forced position of the wires and hoses:
I posted a drag chain width calculation here:
There I assume that the “cable sorting fork” at every direction change forces a 2 mm distance between every wire or hose and I come to this result (a true ATC spindle assumed):
11.8 mm spindle power cable
8 mm spindle control cable
8 mm Z motor cable
4 mm signal cable for Z limit sensor
8 mm spindle coolant hose
8 mm spindle coolant hose
8 mm for Festo QS8 pneumatic hose for spindle sealing air
8 mm for Festo QS8 pneumatic hose for spindle tool change
4 mm for LED light at spindle
8 mm X stepper motor
4 mm for the X limit sensor
8 mm Y stepper motor
4 mm for the Y limit sensor
4 mm for Z axis oiler
4 mm for X axis oiler
4 mm for dust boot up/down control
4 mm for dust boot control sensor
15 * 2 mm distance between every single cable or hose
129.8 mm total
And I surely forgot some control wires or hoses
Here you can see that Tom runs the wires and hoses in two layers on top of each other in the drag chain. He says he used an IGUS 100 mm drag chain:
Tom uses a Jianken JGL-100 2.5kw 24000rpm ATC spindle on a heavily customized Onefinity Woodworker CNC machine (with his own, new z assembly, and his own pneumatic dust boot)
I think a 25 mm high drag chain will allow two layers of wires on top of the other.
For the Z-chain, i don’t believe it’ll require every single cable, as we can eliminate the steppers and what not. It only has to deal with what’s actually on the Z plate and in/on the spindle mount.
I can see more than just the atc tubes and wires… like maybe a halo light, mister/air, laser wires perhaps but not much.
On the Dominator i’m using the same 18x50 chains which means it will be holding a lot more.
That said…it is certainly possible to have an upgraded much larger cable chain. Our X is a 3d printed bracket jetting out from the back of the Z-carriage and those files will be made available.
The x chain sits atop the gantry extrusion, so definitely tons of places to mount onto that with larger chains and even have something overhang on the back without too much trouble.
The Y is in the exact same situation, a 3d printed bracket jetting out from the right or left gantry plate (made this so customers can choose for themselves which side they want the cable chain / controller).
After we get it started shipping and we’re sufficiently along on our very special black friday project… i will work on getting larger chains stocked for folks to use instead of the 18x50.
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Hey Daniel,
sure, that is clear. I was refering to the thickest chain which is always Y Axis chain. The subsequent axes naturally have a decreasing amount of cables and hoses.
I do love the “cable sorting forks” idea. I’ve only seen it once on a machine (forget which) but loved how the cables were organized. It really tickled my wire organization desire.
I wonder if i could design a simple 3d printed insert to make that possible in standard chains?
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Hey Daniel,
I’m convinced something like that should be invented and could be offered with success.
In the future I think I’ll design more things myself and make them with my Prusa, or with wood on the cnc. But at the moment I want to put my machine into service as soon as possible. So I think of simply trying out Adam’s Sidekick ATC dust boot that I find cool and he said a 25 x 90 mm drag chain would be possible, although more expensive.
I still have some time to think about it all because we aren’t yet there, scheduling for tomorrow is too tight. Too few things packed this evening. Maybe we’ll drive saturday, but with a more effectively packed car then.
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Hey Daniel,
here for inspiration:
perfect now to see if it would hold my dust boot airlines also without a issue
A few questions,
is that drag chain the same size as the original one that comes with the onefinity machine give or take ? and the other question would it have a maker file option ? as I do have a 3d printer
No. It’s 18x50.
The one that comes on the Onefinity i believe is 15x 20
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Hey Chris, hey @Wood,
The original Onefinity is 15 x 30 mm, which I would consider as a joke.
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I’m going to try a different approach to the maker files. I’m including the sliced files along with the STL’s.
If there are other ways i can enhance our maker files, please let me know. I’d like to make these as useful and value-added as possible.
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Not sure if this is the best place to post… vs start a new thread??.. but I thought I would post on the install of my new PwnCNC Z-cable chain on my 1F Elite Foreman.
The install went relatively smoothly… and I had no problem fitting everything including an extra air assist line for the laser… but just a couple of things I thought might be helpful to others: First, the ends on the cable chain have to be flipped around (front to back) in order to work properly with the setup. Easy enough to figure out (and to do) but there was no mention of it in the included installation instructions.
As mentioned in Daniel’s original post, I had to leave the spindle and ATC cable connectors outside the chain and remove a couple of the hinged cross bars to accommodate that.
Lastly, the bottom of the included NEMA-23 stepper motor mount interfered with the top of the Z carriage. I solved this by installing a couple of spacer sleeves I cut to length as needed. I did have to use longer screws to accommodate this… but I had some on hand.
I have included a few photos to show the install… and circled the NEMA 23 mount issue in one of the photos.
Another phenomenal product from PWN… highly recommend. For over a year now I have been trying everything from zip ties to PWN cable joints to wishful thinking in order to keep the cables and hoses from flopping over on the rails. Having them all neatly enclosed in the cable chain… well let’s just say I slept like a baby last night. LOL.
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