As I was planning to move the movable gantry cnc machine to my house in Butterworth, I had to consider how to fit it in place at the new location.
The movable gantry cnc machine had to be placed at a corner close to walls on the left and front in order to save space. That made the space on the left not accessible.
I used to tinker with the circuit boards during my experimentation. It was necessary for me to have access to them. Due to the new layout, the existing electronic driver boards and breakout boards had to be shifted to a different location. My plan was to bring them somewhere near the middle of the X-axis length, so that my computer processing unit, CPU, would be placed on the left, next to the mains power supply on the wall.
The wires to the stepper motors would have to come from the new location of the stepper driver boards. By observing the movement of the X-axis, I found that some portions of the drag chain had no movement at all. It was only somewhere in the middle of the drag chain that the movement started. That got me thinking! Actually, I did not need the drag chain to cover the whole length of the base board as I had fabricated previously.
The drag chain was used to enclose the bundle of wires for the stepper motors so that they become protected while the axes were moving in different directions. It was useful for wire management and they do look impressive in operation when they pick up and lay down in sync with the movement of the machine.
So since they could be shortened at a specific location, they also helped me to decide where to place the electronic boards directly on the opposite side. I could also run a conduit for the wires underneath the cnc bed.
Overall, by shortening the drag chain, I had also solved the sagging problem of my drag chain tray. Shorter length meant less sag and it was neater.
