DIY Cable Carrier

[Coogrrr]

I for one am banned from using the vacuum cleaner, all I did was to use it at work one day to pull a small parachute through an underground conduit, problem was the conduit had been there a while and was full of water, it is surprising just how quick a vacuum can suck water, unfortunately it wasn't one of those wet vac's and never really survived.

Wasn't into CNC at the time either, so the whole lot went into the bin...

Russell.

Epineh your gonna get all the wives/girlfriends together and mad at us so they take away our stolen cutlery and vacuum hoses and such! Be careful so we dont all end up on group restriction!

Coog

[MrWild]

A few weeks of typing in (E chain, E-chain, energy chain, wire channel, wire guide, Igus) into eBay search netted me a nice E-Channel (enclosed E-chain) for just $15. Yeah, after adding in the shipping it is $30 total, but it is long enough and large enough to do the trick. The blue flex conduit was $16 at the local building emporium so I feel I did okay for a much better product.

There are deals out there.

[Colin300]

Hi,
I made mine from Aussie Duct.manufactured a machining jig to machine using drills.when complete you assemble the parts .Hence you have a energy cable.They want $120 for .9m. they can keep it!

I'll get back to you with pics soon.

at work and the boss is cracking the whip.

colin300

[dsquire]

Coog,

2" Shop-Vac hose is probably what you want... and there's the 1-1/4" too. I believe you can get them only without the vacuum.

Good luck!

Go to any place that sells vacuum cleaners or repairs them. Sometimes if you talk nice they will give you an old one cheap or for free if one of the ends are messed up. If you can get one for a central vaccum they can go to 30 feet or more in length and in various diameters.

cheers

Don

[Big S]

Here is my first attempt at making some cable chain, the chain is about 60mm wide. Prices here in NZ are ridiculous and theres also shipping costs when ordering from the US. Needs a few tweaks to work properly and I will make it out of acrylic or something once I am happy with the design.

Shannon.

http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showp...0/ppuser/24311
http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showp...0/ppuser/24311
http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showp...0/ppuser/24311

[HayTay]

Here is my first attempt at making some cable chain, the chain is about 60mm wide. Needs a few tweaks to work properly and I will make it out of acrylic or something once I am happy with the design.

Shannon.

Shannon,

Excellent job. Given the looks of your first attempt, you should have it nailed on round two. Any chance you can be persuaded to share the 2D CAD file so we all don't have to reinvent the 'chain'?

Thanks for sharing what you've done so far.

[paulC]

Here is my first attempt at making some cable chain, the chain is about 60mm wide. Prices here in NZ are ridiculous and theres also shipping costs when ordering from the US. Needs a few tweaks to work properly and I will make it out of acrylic or something once I am happy with the design.

Real nice job.
All my similar ideas needed machining on two sides. Your version is brilliant.
Paul

[Big S]

Shannon,

Excellent job. Given the looks of your first attempt, you should have it nailed on round two. Any chance you can be persuaded to share the 2D CAD file so we all don't have to reinvent the 'chain'?

Thanks for sharing what you've done so far.

No problems with supplying the CAD file, I will just make sure that it works right first. The one in the pics has a slight bow to it when it is supposed to sit flat. a small dimension change will fix that though.

Shannon.

[HayTay]

No problems with supplying the CAD file, I will just make sure that it works right first. The one in the pics has a slight bow to it when it is supposed to sit flat. a small dimension change will fix that though.

Shannon.

Sounds great. I look forward to it. I know I've got a sheet of something around here that would be ideal for the E-Chain project. It'll give me a chance to find it while waiting for the CAD file.

Appreciate it, big time, Big S,

[epineh]

That is nice work Big S, it looks like it would work quite nicely as a mold using plastic injection as well.

Good job !

Russell.

[the_paco]

Nice work Shannon!

Keep us post!

[Big S]

Here is the new acrylic chain. It works really great, nothing is glued together but it takes a bit of tuning to get the offsets for the tight fit right. The red top plates are clear red acrylic as an experiment to see how it looked.

how do I go about uploading the dxf?



http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/data/...m/DSC02735.JPG

Shannon.

[HayTay]

Here is the new acrylic chain. It works really great...

how do I go about uploading the dxf?

Shannon, Super Job!

As long as the DXF files are <= 500K in size you can upload them when posting a reply by scrolling down to the 'Attach Files' section and clicking on the 'Manage Attachments' button. From there it should be fairly obvious but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Give it a go. You can also upload any of the other file formats listed as long as they are less than the allowed file size(s) listed in the 'Manage Attachments' dialog box. Oh, and if the files are too large all you have to do is compress them into a single, or multiple, ZIP file(s) using your favorite ZIP compression utility before uploading them.

IHTH & Thanks a lot,

[joecnc2006]

Great job on the chain, you are using 1/8" acrylic?

Joe

[Big S]

Great job on the chain, you are using 1/8" acrylic?

Joe

Hi Joe,

I used 6mm for the side plates and 3mm acrylic for the tops, I can change the drawings to suit 1/4" and 1/8" easy enough though.


I am still having issues with the file upload as the manage attachments button seems to be missing when I look at the attach files box???

Thanks,

Shannon.

[joecnc2006]

Hi Joe,

I used 6mm for the side plates and 3mm acrylic for the tops, I can change the drawings to suit 1/4" and 1/8" easy enough though.


I am still having issues with the file upload as the manage attachments button seems to be missing when I look at the attach files box???

Thanks,

Shannon.

..


If you want to e-mail them to me i can upload here.

Joe

[Big S]

OK... i can upload files using MS internet explorer but not with firefox

Here is the Dxf, thanks for the offer though Joe

If anyone wants any changes, just let me know.


Shannon.

[joecnc2006]

Glad it worked for you.

You may want to tell people the depth of cuts, and alot of people use v-carve not sure if you do or not.

Thanks for your contribution to the e-chain.

Joe

[Big S]

Glad it worked for you.

You may want to tell people the depth of cuts, and alot of people use v-carve not sure if you do or not.

Thanks for your contribution to the e-chain.

Joe

I used toolpath on the multicam router at my work to cut these, I haven't used v-carve before though. My total CNC machining experience is about a month on the job

I cut the circles where the links overlap to just over halfway through (3.1mm also set the drawings up to be cut with a 1/8" cutter.
deep) The top and bottom plates might need a different tool offset depending on the material used, if it is harder like acrylic they will need a slightly bigger tool offset. The triangular end pieces in the drawing have two different size center circles, the smaller ones are for the pins and the bigger ones for the holes. I think it will take some trial and error for the first few links to get them to fit properly, then its make heaps of them and make a chain.

I also set up the drawing to be cut with a 1/8" cutter.

Shannon.

[HayTay]

Big S,

Thanks for sharing. I see your contribution leading to a lot of machine upgrades here on CNCzone.

I'll have to tack on a few 3mm & 6mm plastic sheets when I place my order for the ¾" HDPE I'm sure I'll need for Joe's CNC 4x4 Hybrid build... coming soon!

In the mean time, I'll experiment on some scraps I've got laying about to get a feel for the tolerances.

The best to you,