Pleasant Hardware

Yesterday, I cannibalized an old scanner.

Today I took the “drag spring” I recovered and integrated it into the x stage of my MakerBot.

Actually, I designed the drag chain (Pimp your MakerBot, Part 2) for this purpose. But I quickly realized, that the drag chain would be either too clumsy for moving with the x stage or too small resp. detailed to print on a MakerBot. So I decided to wait for another idea and to use the drag chain for the extruder cable on the y stage in the meanwhile.

When I saw the drag spring in the scanner, I immediately fell in love  with the idea to use it as drag chain for the x stage cables.

The main problem was to get the x stage cables into the tube without cutting off any existing connectors. Finally I “screwed” the spring onto the cables. It took a while, but I didn’t come up with a better idea.

Then I designed and printed an end fitting to attach the spring to the x stage:

I glued the end of the spring into the fitting and used the opportunity to lay the endstop cables “inside” the x stage (they were hot-glued to the outside before).

To attach the other end of the spring to the body, I printed a simple clip which is bolted to the outside of the MakerBot:

Et voilà: A professional, clean drag chain for the x stage cables:

Here’s a short movie of it in motion:

Yesterday, I cannibalized an old scanner. Today I took the "drag spring" I recovered and integrated it into the x stage of my MakerBot. Actually, I designed the drag chain (Pimp your MakerBot, Part 2) for this purpose. But I quickly realized, that the drag chain would be either too clumsy for moving with the x stage or too small resp. detailed to print on a MakerBot. So I decided to wait for another idea and to use the drag chain for the extruder cable on the y stage in the meanwhile. When I saw the drag spring in the scanner, I immediately fell in love  with the idea to use it as drag chain for the x stage cables. The main problem was to get the x stage cables into the tube without cutting off any existing connectors. Finally I "screwed" the spring onto the cables. It took a while, but I didn't come up with a better idea. Then I designed and printed an end fitting to attach the spring to the x stage: I glued the end of the spring into the fitting and used the opportunity to lay the endstop cables "inside" the x stage (they were hot-glued to the outside before). To attach the other end of the spring to the body, I printed a simple clip which is bolted to the outside of the MakerBot: Et voilà: A professional, clean drag chain for the x stage cables: Here's a short movie of it in motion:

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 16:55 and is filed under MakerBot enhancements, Movie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.