D-bot hot-end Cable Chain by dotorg

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

The weight of the wiring going to the hot-end on my D-Bot derived printer was high enough that none of the normal ways of supporting them (3mm filament, PTFE tubing, etc) would support them well enough to not sag, occasionally getting in the way of the X gantry.
A rigid cable chain was a better solution, however the existing ones used with the D-bot were both too small for the number of wires necessary for a dual-extruder hot-end with a BLTouch, but they required feeding all the wires through the chain at installation time, making a huge job if they never need to be replaced.
This design is wider -- more than twice as much area within the chain -- and has a clip-based design that keeps the outer side of the chain completely open until the clips are added. The clips fit in snuggly and securely hold even a fairly substantial bundle of wires.
The hot-end clip replaces the PTFE support, and screws into the stock bolt holes. The fixed end is designed to mount on the rear of the printer (which is where I had my wires running).
Installing is pretty simple. Just replace the PTFE support on the hot-end with the hot-end clip, screw the other end into the rear 4020 rail, and clip together enough of the individual links to match the length of the wires. I'm using 29 for a 300x300 bed. Run the wires in a bundle within the chain, and lock them in place with the front clip. Pay attention to the direction you clip it -- there's teeth that hook around the inside of the link to keep it in place so it won't slide out. Note that the rear end has the link attachment reversed. That's normal.