Coiling Motor Wires ???????

[Mark Farris]

I am getting close to the completion or the re-assembly of my new to me 2010 PRS Alpha 9648. I fabricated a new X axis e-chain for the bot because some close to me say I am anal and I don't like things to look messy. After the 4 motor wires were inserted thru the new e-chain there was 6-8ft of extra wire, and I wasn't comfortable with cutting them and messing with the plugs. I pulled them all into the control box and carefully coiled and zip tied them individually on the left side of the box, that was pretty empty, before plugging them into the drivers. Everything appears to be running correctly but I wanted to make sure the coiled wires in the control box weren't going to do something weird like cause a magnetic field and screw something up. Anybody have a comment? Opinions Appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark Farris

[dana_swift]

If you have any fear about building up a magnetic field with a coil of motor wire, its easy to take care of. The coil is just getting rid of the extra length, so stretch out the cable into a long U, then coil the U up into a coil and wire tie it together. Then half of each cable goes in the opposite direction canceling out the field.

The good news is its unlikely to make much difference. The conductors inside the jacket are twisted together, so at each twist the magnetic fields are going the opposite direction canceling out the field. If you just coil the cable up, the twisted pairs inside are already doing the magnetic cancellation job.

That's why most multi-conductor cables have twisted pairs inside.

Hope that helps-

D

[Mark Farris]

Dana,
Thank you for that excellent explaination. As I have stated before the electronics are my weakest point. It wasnt necessarily the magnetic field but any problem the coiled wires may cause, magnetic field was all I could come up with. It is always nice to learn something new. Once again much appreciated.

Mark