wire vs free hanging vs cable ... huh?? what?? wiring help please.

Hello All

I am still in the process of ordering electronic parts along with cables and plugs etc. from a single source (Mouser in this instance).

As I don't have any experience in this stuff I need your advice. Sorry for the elementary questions but I do not want to waste money on the wrong components..

I am looking at getting the plugs required for the 2.54mm headers but am confused as to that the various mounting styles mean. There are wire, free hanging and cable mounting styles amongst others... Which is relevant for my needs. ie a plug on the end of my wires which plug onto the 2.54mm breakaway headers that I (will) have soldered onto the PCB? I am guessing it is the free-hanging mounting style but those are a pound or more apiece!! Surely what I am looking for should be cheaper?

Now I need 9 of 3 pin connectors for the opto endstop -> stepper motor driver connections. On the stepper driver side the header is a 3 pin polarised header... Does that mean I should have a polarised connector as well?

I also need 2 of 2 pin connectors for the extruder controller -> mother board connection.

Then a question regarding the cables which run from the stepper controllers to the motors - what AWG rating do we need for these? Is 28 AWG adequate? - in which case I can buy excess 10 ribbon cable and split as required.

The 6 of 10 pin IDC connectors for linking the motherboard to the stepper controllers are included in the makerbot set.

I do need the 6 pin connection for the USB-TTL connection to the motherboard or will a standard USB-TTL cable plug into this 6 pin header directly?

The black and red hookup wire - again, what gauge (if that is how the AWG rating is referred to) should these be?

Finally, is one USB-TTL cable much the same as another or do they come in different flavours?

Thanks guys. I do not have the background or skills of many of you so appreciate your patience with my questions.

Cheers

I'll link the mouser parts I ordered, though this was over a year ago most should still be valid or give you and idea.

> Now I need 9 of 3 pin connectors for the opto
> endstop -> stepper motor driver connections. On
> the stepper driver side the header is a 3 pin
> polarised header... Does that mean I should have a
> polarised connector as well?
538-22-23-2021 Two Pin, Male, 2.54mm, polarised friction lock, (board side)
538-22-01-3027 Two Pin, Female, 2.54mm (cable side) of above
not sure if you need these

538-22-23-2031 Three pin Male, same as above
538-22-01-3037 Three pin Female, same as above
I use these for the opto stops. You probably will only need a min stop for each motor, so you can do with 1 pair for each axis.

538-22-23-2041 Four Pin Male, same as above
538-22-01-3047 Four Pin Female, same as above
Don't know if you need these either, but here for reference

538-08-50-0114 Crimp terminals for the female connectors (you will need a lot of these, one for every pin)


>
> I also need 2 of 2 pin connectors for the extruder
> controller -> mother board connection.

571-2828372 Two pin screw terminal block, 5.08mm


>
> Then a question regarding the cables which run
> from the stepper controllers to the motors - what
> AWG rating do we need for these? Is 28 AWG
> adequate? - in which case I can buy excess 10
> ribbon cable and split as required.

The stepper drivers are rated at about 2 amps max (maybe 2.5) and the circuitry will require a little bit more, so 3-4 amps would be a good number. If you check wire gauge vs amp charts [www.powerstream.com] 24 gauge would be the minimum you should use. If you jump up to 20/22 gauge you could safely do long runs without worrying about heat or loss due to current. I would use the same gauge to wire the motors as you do to power the stepper board.


> The 6 of 10 pin IDC connectors for linking the
> motherboard to the stepper controllers are
> included in the makerbot set.
For reference,
523-135-2801-010FT Ribbon Cable
649-71600-010LF 10 Pin connectors for the Ribbon Cable (2 per cable)
649-66506-066LF 10 Pin shrouded PCB connector


>
> I do need the 6 pin connection for the USB-TTL
> connection to the motherboard or will a standard
> USB-TTL cable plug into this 6 pin header
> directly?

The 6 pin 2.54 mm header should fit most (if not all) FTDI USB-TTL cables.
You could get something like this,
649-68016-236HLF 36 Pin 2.54mm, 1 row
and break off 6 pins, and have a bunch to spare for other devices.

> The black and red hookup wire - again, what gauge
> (if that is how the AWG rating is referred to)
> should these be?

Once again consult the wire gauge vs. amperage charts [www.powerstream.com] and 22/20 gauge looks to be sufficient.

>
> Finally, is one USB-TTL cable much the same as
> another or do they come in different flavours?

Most FTDI cables should all have the same layout/pins and work the same.


I hope this helps!

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[www.binaryconstruct.com]

I'm also in the same boat as you so I've been keeping track of everything in this google spreadsheet: [spreadsheets.google.com] I've verified almost all the parts and I'm about half way done doing the actual mods. Also, I decided to use plain pins on the endstops and these easy to use connectors: [mouser.com] Just have to mark it with a marker or something since they aren't polarized, but a lot easier to assemble than crimp pins which I always seem to mangle.

> 523-135-2801-010FT Ribbon Cable

Beware, this item is not 100 ft long despite what the page says. It's actually about 1 foot long which isn't long enough to reach. I ordered it recently and it was wrong, they said they're going to be fixing the page. What you might want is 523-191-2801-110 which is 100' long which is kinda overkill since you only need about 10'. I decided to order a 10' length from digikey instead. [search.digikey.com]

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Tony Buser http://tonybuser.com * http://reprap.org/wiki/User:Tbuser#Projects

Could I suggest that when asking questions about specific parts, you include clickable links to the parts in the Mouser (I'm guessing Mouser UK?) online catalog, that you are considering, or at least the Mouser part numbers, so that anyone wishing to help you can fairly quickly check them out for you? These connectors should not be a pound each!

Also, it sounds like you would benefit from hooking up with a local RUG who can help you out "face to face" -- are there others in your area who are Reprappers? Is there a RUG you can join? Or can you help to form one?

Years ago, we had a Google spreadsheet for the Gen1 boards that included Mouser and RS part numbers (not just for the inter board wiring, but for each component on the boards too). It took a lot of work to put it together, and then to check it and correct any mistakes (I helped some with that), but that level of detail for Gen3 is/would be helpful.

As far as I know, full documentation of Gen3 parts and interconnects at that level of detail does not currently exist within the RepRap community. If I were using a set of Gen3 boards for my own Mendel build, I'd probably be willing to create that level of detailed docs for the interconnects and power wiring stuff as I went -- but I'm not doing things that way (I'm opting for a Seeeduino Mega and Pololu stepper controllers, and either some form of shield PCB or (as a fallback) Adrian's "stepper driver sandwich" approach).

If someone reading this is willing to take on the job of creating a "Mendel wiring parts list" and poplulating it with part numbers from any of the well known suppliers (Mouser, Digikey, RS, ...) that would be great!

> On the stepper driver side the header is a 3 pin polarised header...
> Does that mean I should have a polarised connector as well?

Yes, use the matching connector. This makes it harder to accidentally destroy (parts of) your electronics by plugging things in backwards.

> I also need 2 of 2 pin connectors for the extruder controller -> mother board connection.

The same style of connectors (just 2pin not 3pin) will work fine.

> Then a question regarding the cables which run from the stepper controllers to the motors -
> what AWG rating do we need for these? Is 28 AWG adequate?

The wiki page WiresAndConnectors was written for the Gen1 board set, but is still likely to be somewhat relevant here. It suggests 20 or 22AWG.

Max current through a stepper (especially if you use a Wade style extruder and a beefy 50Nm motor) can be of the order of 1.5A or so, which suggests 18AWG or so wire (there are AWG tables all over the Internet that have current capacity for a given wire gauge, such as this one). You might get away with 20 AWG or even 22 AWG, and that will be easier to get into the connectors than 18AWG -- but 28 AWG is going to be too small, as far as I know.

> - in which case I can buy excess 10 ribbon cable and split as required.

Probably not a good idea, see above.

> I do need the 6 pin connection for the USB-TTL connection to the motherboard or
> will a standard USB-TTL cable plug into this 6 pin header directly?

If the cable comes with the usual six pin 0.1in spaced female connector on it, it will plug directly into the header on the board. Just take care to get it the right way round on each board. If you buy a cable that ends with bare wires... you need to buy (and solder) such a connector to the cable.

> The black and red hookup wire - again, what gauge (if that is how the AWG rating is referred to) should these be?

That's for power to boards (right?) so 22AWG or better. Preferably 18AWG to the stepper driver boards, if you can get the connectors onto it OK.

> Finally, is one USB-TTL cable much the same as another or do they come in different flavours?

I'll take a chocolate one These cables come based on different chips, which can need different drivers and so have different levels of ease of installing on different host PC operating systems. Most are "plug and play" now, at least in Windows and Linux, as far as I know. Wade was having some fairly weird issues with his serial connectivity on his new MacBook Pro under OS X, that I ran out of time trying to figure out with him at the Maker Faire. (My Seeeduino has a USB mini-B connector right there on the board, so I don't need to deal with the USB-TTL cable stuff at all here... just all kinds of other things, because I'm choosing 'alternative' electronics!).

Finally: Just because I have opinions, and am willing to share them in answer to your questions, does not mean they are always going to be correct... hopefully others will point out mistakes if I make any bad blunders

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Jonathan

Looking over my earlier response, and multiple AWG charts, 22AWG wire should be fine throughout, and is what most of the connectors involved work well with, so that's probably the way to go. (If you upgrade to a heated bed later, a popular modification which can draw a LOT of power, you'd want to use beefier wiring for that, obviously.)

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Jonathan

Hey guys

Am I missing something here? It looks like Adrian uses the 10 way ribbon cable to power the extruder stepper motor as seen in his mendel wiring video

Given the discussion here it would seem the wiring he is using is not adequate, but it clearly is!! Is AWG 20 or 22 very conservative then? or perhaps the ribbon cable there is not AWG 28?

Is the AWG 28 adequate for the heater and (I assume) the thermistor?

Cheers from a confused individual

The stepper boards don't get power from the motherboard, they get wired in series right to the chocolate block for power.

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Tony Buser http://tonybuser.com * http://reprap.org/wiki/User:Tbuser#Projects

Hey Tony

Yes, I see that, but he uses 8 way ribbon cable from the extruder controller to the mounting on the extruder head - 4 wires for the motor, 2 for the thermistor and 2 for the nichrome.

28 AWG is rated for 1.4A so isn't really adequate for anything but the thermistor as the motor needs about 1.5A and the heater 2A.

Having said that it is only a moderate overload, so you will probably get away with it as Adrian seems to do. I can't recommend it though.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hey people

A question about connecting the motherboard and extruder controller.

There is the connection from the SDA and SCL on the motherboard to the D9 and D10 pins on the extruder controller according to the wiring diagram.

The SDA SCL on the motherboard is no problem as this is the standard 2.54mm pitch but the D9 and D10 pins on the extruder controller look to be further apart. Could someone please tell me what pitch I should get the associated female connector in?

Also, I understand the 4 2-pin headers we use to replace the 4 RS485 connectors on the mother board are to be used for up to 4 extruder controllers?

Thanks

gr0k Wrote:
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>
> > 523-135-2801-010FT Ribbon Cable
>
> Beware, this item is not 100 ft long despite what the page says. It's actually about 1 foot long
> which isn't long enough to reach. I ordered it recently and it was wrong, they said they're going
...

Just an update on this item. It is priced per foot but if you order multiples of that item you will get a single continuous length.

I phoned and asked about it, ordered 12 foot and received a 12 foot length.

191-2801-110FT

AgeingHippy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The SDA SCL on the motherboard is no problem as
> this is the standard 2.54mm pitch but the D9 and
> D10 pins on the extruder controller look to be
> further apart. Could someone please tell me what
> pitch I should get the associated female connector
> in?

I didn't have any clips that worked right there either, so I ended up using these crimp pins from [mouser.com] and then put some heat shrink tubes around them to create like single socket clips onto those pins if that makes sense. (I can take a pic if it doesn't)

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Tony Buser http://tonybuser.com * http://reprap.org/wiki/User:Tbuser#Projects