Need Help!- Servo Power and Control Cable

[GrahamIT]

I've been looking for a special type of cable that combines both power and screened data cables. I'm going to be using several Electrocraft E240 servos on my next project and would like to minimise all the spegheti.

So I need an 8mm ish cable that's got 4 core screened for the encoder and 3 power leads for +, - and ground. If anyone has come across this type of cable in their travels, can you point me in the right direction please.

Many thanks

Graham

[mike_Kilroy]

I like the Laurel & Hardy pix!

Reason u dont see this commonly is that it is a bad idea; motor cables should be separated by like 6" from the feedback cables and both should be shielded. What you are looking for exists but the extra spegetti look savings will be hard on making it work I suspect.

[GrahamIT]

Originally Posted by mike_Kilroy I like the Laurel & Hardy pix! Reason u dont see this commonly is that it is a bad idea; motor cables should be separated by like 6" from the feedback cables and both should be shielded. What you are looking for exists but the extra spegetti look savings will be hard on making it work I suspect.

That's me all over... always getting into a mess :P

I can appreciate the shielding, so motor noise doesn't get recieved by the encoder cables, but to be honest I can't see a lot of difference between having them in the same outer sheath or running beside each other in a harness / cable chain, as long as the encoder wires are shielded and the motor is suppressed to stop arching at the brushes. They both have to go back to a Gecko G320X.

After all's said and done, my brushed servos encoder is only 1.5" away from the brushes and unshielded. When it was in it's previous life as the servo in a back-up tape library for an IBM server, the cables ran in the same plastic outer, even though it was one of those loose knitted, chinese finger trap types. Then the encoder cable was shielded but the motor cable wasn't, not even twisted together. So I don't know I'm sure.

It would be nice to only have to make one connection per axis instead of two though.

[Al_The_Man]

SMW on their rotary table controller used to use a method close to what you are looking for, they used a metallic flex conduit with shielded cable for the differential encoder and separate non shielded twisted conductors for the motor and the brake, in the same 1/2" flex conduit.
Al.