Drag chains – Makerstore

There is a choice of two orientations for the drag chains: either where the Y axis drag chain’s opening is at the back left corner of the machine (recommended if you use a duet2wifi controller, or else if you like to stick to the original’s orientation of cabling) or else where the Y axis drag chain’s opening is at the front left of the machine (handy for some workplace situation to have motor cables available at the front of the machine).

Y axis drag chain opening

backside left

Prepare the brackets:

Attribution and credit: picture copied from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2538752/files from file “WorkBee-Screw-Assembly-Manual.pdf” as made by Ooznest and made available under Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) license (link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ )

And attach them to the structure:

And attach the drag chains:

frontside left

Take one of the 3D printed plastic drag chain supports, a drag chain start element and three 15mm low profile M5 screws with 3 nylon insert M5 nuts: and attach it to the corresponding holes:

Then, prepare low profile 25mm M5 screws and post insertion nuts for the holes at the longer end of the 3D print:

Make these not too tight (you will otherwise not be able to use the post insertion nut properly when attaching to the rail):

And attach it to the front left hand Y axis rail:

Take again 3 15mm M5 low profile screws and 3 M5 lock nuts as well as a drag chain start element (different than the one you took for the previous setp) and the other 3D print:

And attach these:

Then take 2 low profile 20mm M5 screws and 2 M5 lock nuts:

And attach it to the left plate:

You’re all done for preparing the Y axis drag chain!

Now we move on the X axis drag chain:

Take a drag chain start element, a low profile 8mm M5 screw and a post insertion nut:

Put it in the central hole of the drag chain start element – but do not tighten it yet:

And attach it to the rail parallel to the X axis rail – now you can tighten the screw so that the post insertion nut will lock itself:

Now take the last 3D print and the last drag chain start element and again 3 low profile 15mm M5 screws, together with 3 M5 lock nuts:

Tighten these, and take 2 low profile 55 M5 screws, with two M5 lock nuts BUT BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT THE ORIENTATION OF THE SCFREWS! THE LOCK NUT SITS ON TOP:

And attach that to the X axis carriage

And now add the X and Y drag chain!