I'm in the process of building a huge printer and I was already gonna use Ethernet cable or UTP cable as we call it in the trade of low voltage, It's a universal cable. Then I saw this video and decided to share my tips. Works great for just about everything. Also alarm wire works but keep in mind that stuff is 22AWG. Comes in two and four conductor. Keep in mind with CAT5e it's 26AWG and 24AWG depending on the brand and you shouldn't go over 500mA per conductor so if you plan to run a stepper motor I would double up on the conductors. Also avoid copper plated aluminum. 2.54mm screw terminals will work on those RJ45 breakout boards. Speaking of RJ45 you want to add a good strain relief, RJ45 connections don't like moving around. You could terminate the conductors with B-Connectors but they will take up space but solder and heatshrink would work better.
Great video. I'm definitely grabbing a pack of solder-able jacks. For everyone who isn't fully steeped in networking, you should know that T568B is the "normal" wiring pattern. You can use either one and stick with it and it will be fine, but if you always use B then you won't ever accidentally make a crossover cable when you didn't mean to. Similarly, if you're using a premade cable and just re-terminating it, it's almost certainly B wired from the factory. T568A is mostly used in government and by people who want to ruin my day and make me re-terminate the desks in a new office space.
Thanks Jameson! I've always heard to wire in 'B' but never heard a solid explanation as to why. It seems like it's a fairly arbitrary standard change over time and there are no real advantages to either - assuming you can stick to one across an installation.
Have you ever considered grouping together multiple pairs for heater current? You can split a high current wire into 2-4 smaller current wires. As long as they rejoin on both sides, its like having one wire. Further, if you use the twisted pairs for +/- of each of the split groups, you get crosstalk reduction if you want to have other signals on the remaining pairs. This makes sense theoretically. I have yet to try it. :)
i tinkered with this and a lot of other mounting/wiring solutions since i do a lot of electronics hobbyist type work as a hobby and they're def a good option. this video to hit so many good points, you can tell you're actually passionate about this just from me watching one video. i dont mean to sound like a snob or a dick, but a lot of the small 3d printing youtubers are kinda lame... you know the "stl grabbers", the influencers who never credit anyone... i feel like not dropping a link to the person who designed the file you made a whole video series about is the equivalent someone not taking their shopping carts back.
This is awesome. I am working on a custom build and came across this when researching options to use for wiring. I have gotten some help from a few of your videos now. First found you when working on my tronxy x5sa.
I don't know if you have any experience creating custom PCBs with software like KiCad (which is free), but this seems like a great option to avoid a lot of the soldering on proto boards for example. The learning curve isn't too terrible when you are dealing with things like RJ-45 jacks, JST connectors, dupont headers and screw terminals. And the boards are typically very cheap if you use some of the Chinese companies like PCBWay or JLCPCB.
Hey David. I've never created my own custom PCB but I've seen and heard that ads for the services all over the place. I really should look into those services, if for no other reason than to maintain geek cred, but also to save a lot of soldering :) Thanks for the suggestion!.
Awwwww!! You blew my secret sauce! I figured out the Ethernet/4 core temp control wire because, well, necessity is the mother of invention... And it was right after Christmas, I was broke and had plenty handy! For the motors, I kept the wound pairs together, and there was literally no difference in impedance 😁 However, I did have to upgrade, after the recommended steppers for the Voron 2.4 motor upgrade 😅
It works plenty well, it's well insulated, cheap in bulk. Why not use it? I do kinda wish I would've just stopped at crimping connectors onto the wire though as I've spent WAY too much time working this out and now that my printer is where I want it to be I pretty much never touch the cables.
I like the idea of this and have considered it in the past but have worried a little with the amp draw involved, especially with the heater wires for the hotend, and there's no way I'd use these for the heatbed. One alternative I've found is the voron v4 toolhead PCB for the hotend in particular, converts all your tool head wires down to a single cable with a higher amp draw capability. Another thing I've started working on for my Big printer is I found a DB-50 breakout board with 3a per terminal capacity, ordered 2 of those, then found a 3a per conductor DB-50 cable, this will work well for me as I'm going with a custom CR-10 style control box with a big ol BTT manta c8b board with a ton of spare IO. Then I can leave spare IO for later as I have 50 terminals to play with, plus since I can't not upgrade my printer endlessly it enables me to swap boards on the fly and have some pre-wired cables to the board that I just need to run into the terminals (I can send you some pics sometime if you're curious). Another cool entry is the budding canbus capability on a few newer boards allowing 1 4 wire connection for ALL of your IO on the other end, though I'll have to see how effective that is before I try that.
Hey Steven, I would absolutely not run heater amperage through those wires. I stick to only beefy low gauge wire and pretty substantial connectors way overrated for use. I've had a few terminal blocks melt from poor connections so I tend to be a bit careful with heater wattages. I'd love to see pics of the DB-50 breakout. That definitely future-proof but some of those breakouts look pretty large. Would like to see the mounting solution you came up with. The Manta with the CB-1 seems like a heck of a deal - especially since it's so hard to get your hands on Raspberry Pis. If I were upgrading today that's probably the route I would go as well!
It's a bit more hazardous as when the wires age they could break or increase in resistance individually increasing potential for fire. Not to mention those wires are so tiny you'd probably need most of the pairs to supply enough amps and trying to run any signal along side that much power would mean you'd increase the likelihood of errors. Personally, I'd advise against it.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans I see, my plan B was going for separate +V/GND dedicated thick pair... Ideal would be go straight to CAN bus, but I'm not running klipper so it's a steep upgrade for me now...
wires(from device), to solder (PCB daughter board), to screw terminal, to connector (RJ45 plug), to connector (RJ45 receptacle), to cable (CAT6), to connector(RJ45 plug), to connector (RJ45 receptacle), to solder(second daughter board), to screw terminal, to cable (original), to connector(JST on main board) ... recipe for troubleshooting !
Awsome! I now feel vindicated for already thinking about using cat5 cable. I'd wondered why nobody has done this and now here you are. Good points to boot. What I had wondered was the reliability of the cat 5 plugs themselves with so much movement. Not to mention oxidation. True gold pins would probably be in order lest oxidation eventually sets in. "De-oxit D5" sprayed on the connections will go a long way to prevent this. Its my go to professionally for contact issues. It just works. For the stepper motors 4 wire traditional phone cable might be adequate as well?
Hello iphlue! The connectors definitely seem to be the weak spot. Ensuring good strain relief would be a great idea and my current cable tower puts pretty much no strain on the connectors themselves. That said, the printer where I just hot-glued the keystones to the PCB had little in the way of strain relief and the connectors held up for years so it may very much by a YMMV type of thing. I'd think phone cable would work just as well with even smaller jacks. It looks like phone wire ranges from 22 to 26awg so maybe we wary of the really thin stuff.
Do you use those cables even for the hotend and the printbed? I'm worried about the maximum ampere capacity of those cables and thus the heat. Are you running 12V or 24V over those cables?
NO! Do not try to use the ethernet cables for high draw items like heaters. While the wire itself *might* be able to sustain a small heater the resistance from the connectors and joints almost certainly will not. Stick with lower gauge wire for those high draw items. I'm using ethernet cables in some form on both 12v and 24v printers without issue.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans Thanks. I did NOT intend to use those for heaters. I was just worried about that you use them even for heaters. I'm already unhappy with the Tronxy solution they came up with. You know, this ribbon cable solution even used for the heater...
@@WolframWebers Oddly my X5SA didn't come with the ribbon cable but rather a big molex connector and a bundle of wires. I'm surprised they used the ribbon for the heater on other X5SAs. AWG calls for max 3.5 amp through 24awg wire (assuming chassis wiring limits, down to .5amp for 'power transmission' wiring) and a 60w heater at 24v is only 2.5 amp so the wire itself in theory should be able to take the amperage - assuming it's undamaged at room temperature - and I've also never had a wire burn up on me. I have, however, melted connectors rated far higher than 3.5a melt on me when wires wiggled loose. Personally, I don't think I would choose to use anything smaller than the wire gauge the heater shipped with which appears to be closer to 20awg but I'm overly electrically cautious.
I'm in the process of building a huge printer and I was already gonna use Ethernet cable or UTP cable as we call it in the trade of low voltage, It's a universal cable. Then I saw this video and decided to share my tips. Works great for just about everything. Also alarm wire works but keep in mind that stuff is 22AWG. Comes in two and four conductor.
Keep in mind with CAT5e it's 26AWG and 24AWG depending on the brand and you shouldn't go over 500mA per conductor so if you plan to run a stepper motor I would double up on the conductors. Also avoid copper plated aluminum. 2.54mm screw terminals will work on those RJ45 breakout boards. Speaking of RJ45 you want to add a good strain relief, RJ45 connections don't like moving around. You could terminate the conductors with B-Connectors but they will take up space but solder and heatshrink would work better.
Great video. I'm definitely grabbing a pack of solder-able jacks.
For everyone who isn't fully steeped in networking, you should know that T568B is the "normal" wiring pattern. You can use either one and stick with it and it will be fine, but if you always use B then you won't ever accidentally make a crossover cable when you didn't mean to. Similarly, if you're using a premade cable and just re-terminating it, it's almost certainly B wired from the factory.
T568A is mostly used in government and by people who want to ruin my day and make me re-terminate the desks in a new office space.
Thanks Jameson! I've always heard to wire in 'B' but never heard a solid explanation as to why. It seems like it's a fairly arbitrary standard change over time and there are no real advantages to either - assuming you can stick to one across an installation.
Have you ever considered grouping together multiple pairs for heater current? You can split a high current wire into 2-4 smaller current wires. As long as they rejoin on both sides, its like having one wire. Further, if you use the twisted pairs for +/- of each of the split groups, you get crosstalk reduction if you want to have other signals on the remaining pairs. This makes sense theoretically. I have yet to try it. :)
i tinkered with this and a lot of other mounting/wiring solutions since i do a lot of electronics hobbyist type work as a hobby and they're def a good option. this video to hit so many good points, you can tell you're actually passionate about this just from me watching one video.
i dont mean to sound like a snob or a dick, but a lot of the small 3d printing youtubers are kinda lame... you know the "stl grabbers", the influencers who never credit anyone... i feel like not dropping a link to the person who designed the file you made a whole video series about is the equivalent someone not taking their shopping carts back.
This is awesome. I am working on a custom build and came across this when researching options to use for wiring.
I have gotten some help from a few of your videos now. First found you when working on my tronxy x5sa.
I don't know if you have any experience creating custom PCBs with software like KiCad (which is free), but this seems like a great option to avoid a lot of the soldering on proto boards for example. The learning curve isn't too terrible when you are dealing with things like RJ-45 jacks, JST connectors, dupont headers and screw terminals. And the boards are typically very cheap if you use some of the Chinese companies like PCBWay or JLCPCB.
Hey David. I've never created my own custom PCB but I've seen and heard that ads for the services all over the place. I really should look into those services, if for no other reason than to maintain geek cred, but also to save a lot of soldering :) Thanks for the suggestion!.
Awwwww!!
You blew my secret sauce!
I figured out the Ethernet/4 core temp control wire because, well, necessity is the mother of invention... And it was right after Christmas, I was broke and had plenty handy!
For the motors, I kept the wound pairs together, and there was literally no difference in impedance 😁
However, I did have to upgrade, after the recommended steppers for the Voron 2.4 motor upgrade 😅
It works plenty well, it's well insulated, cheap in bulk. Why not use it? I do kinda wish I would've just stopped at crimping connectors onto the wire though as I've spent WAY too much time working this out and now that my printer is where I want it to be I pretty much never touch the cables.
I like the idea of this and have considered it in the past but have worried a little with the amp draw involved, especially with the heater wires for the hotend, and there's no way I'd use these for the heatbed. One alternative I've found is the voron v4 toolhead PCB for the hotend in particular, converts all your tool head wires down to a single cable with a higher amp draw capability. Another thing I've started working on for my Big printer is I found a DB-50 breakout board with 3a per terminal capacity, ordered 2 of those, then found a 3a per conductor DB-50 cable, this will work well for me as I'm going with a custom CR-10 style control box with a big ol BTT manta c8b board with a ton of spare IO. Then I can leave spare IO for later as I have 50 terminals to play with, plus since I can't not upgrade my printer endlessly it enables me to swap boards on the fly and have some pre-wired cables to the board that I just need to run into the terminals (I can send you some pics sometime if you're curious). Another cool entry is the budding canbus capability on a few newer boards allowing 1 4 wire connection for ALL of your IO on the other end, though I'll have to see how effective that is before I try that.
Hey Steven, I would absolutely not run heater amperage through those wires. I stick to only beefy low gauge wire and pretty substantial connectors way overrated for use. I've had a few terminal blocks melt from poor connections so I tend to be a bit careful with heater wattages.
I'd love to see pics of the DB-50 breakout. That definitely future-proof but some of those breakouts look pretty large. Would like to see the mounting solution you came up with. The Manta with the CB-1 seems like a heck of a deal - especially since it's so hard to get your hands on Raspberry Pis. If I were upgrading today that's probably the route I would go as well!
@@LilMikeysBigPlans just shot ya a message with a picture on your Instagram with a picture of my progress so far on the build
@@LilMikeysBigPlans is Instagram the right place to message you?
i knew grabbing that box of brand new ethernet cables off the highway was worth it !
Free cables are the best cables :)
Bummer, was really hoping to see if you had tested how many "doubles" of wires would I need for the hot end power
It's a bit more hazardous as when the wires age they could break or increase in resistance individually increasing potential for fire. Not to mention those wires are so tiny you'd probably need most of the pairs to supply enough amps and trying to run any signal along side that much power would mean you'd increase the likelihood of errors. Personally, I'd advise against it.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans I see, my plan B was going for separate +V/GND dedicated thick pair... Ideal would be go straight to CAN bus, but I'm not running klipper so it's a steep upgrade for me now...
wires(from device), to solder (PCB daughter board), to screw terminal, to connector (RJ45 plug), to connector (RJ45 receptacle), to cable (CAT6), to connector(RJ45 plug), to connector (RJ45 receptacle), to solder(second daughter board), to screw terminal, to cable (original), to connector(JST on main board) ... recipe for troubleshooting !
Awsome! I now feel vindicated for already thinking about using cat5 cable. I'd wondered why nobody has done this and now here you are. Good points to boot. What I had wondered was the reliability of the cat 5 plugs themselves with so much movement. Not to mention oxidation. True gold pins would probably be in order lest oxidation eventually sets in. "De-oxit D5" sprayed on the connections will go a long way to prevent this. Its my go to professionally for contact issues. It just works. For the stepper motors 4 wire traditional phone cable might be adequate as well?
Hello iphlue! The connectors definitely seem to be the weak spot. Ensuring good strain relief would be a great idea and my current cable tower puts pretty much no strain on the connectors themselves. That said, the printer where I just hot-glued the keystones to the PCB had little in the way of strain relief and the connectors held up for years so it may very much by a YMMV type of thing. I'd think phone cable would work just as well with even smaller jacks. It looks like phone wire ranges from 22 to 26awg so maybe we wary of the really thin stuff.
Do you use those cables even for the hotend and the printbed? I'm worried about the maximum ampere capacity of those cables and thus the heat. Are you running 12V or 24V over those cables?
NO! Do not try to use the ethernet cables for high draw items like heaters. While the wire itself *might* be able to sustain a small heater the resistance from the connectors and joints almost certainly will not. Stick with lower gauge wire for those high draw items. I'm using ethernet cables in some form on both 12v and 24v printers without issue.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans Thanks. I did NOT intend to use those for heaters. I was just worried about that you use them even for heaters. I'm already unhappy with the Tronxy solution they came up with. You know, this ribbon cable solution even used for the heater...
@@WolframWebers Oddly my X5SA didn't come with the ribbon cable but rather a big molex connector and a bundle of wires. I'm surprised they used the ribbon for the heater on other X5SAs. AWG calls for max 3.5 amp through 24awg wire (assuming chassis wiring limits, down to .5amp for 'power transmission' wiring) and a 60w heater at 24v is only 2.5 amp so the wire itself in theory should be able to take the amperage - assuming it's undamaged at room temperature - and I've also never had a wire burn up on me. I have, however, melted connectors rated far higher than 3.5a melt on me when wires wiggled loose. Personally, I don't think I would choose to use anything smaller than the wire gauge the heater shipped with which appears to be closer to 20awg but I'm overly electrically cautious.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans So true. Will definitely replace the heater cables. Never trusted the ribbon cable and found it always odd TronXY used them.
@@LilMikeysBigPlans You can always split power over multiple cores.