Drag chain and switch type.

[Lee Roberts]

and a demo showing 2 wired in parallel:

[mekanik]

Hi Ollie
Try These, Boyan seems to think there the mutt's nut's
http://www.cable-tracks.com/
Regards
Mike

[Ollie78]

Cheers for the replies.

I have further questions....


It looks like proximity sensors are a good way to go, no moving parts to go wrong. from what I gather though I will need an extra 24v power supply for these. Why so high a voltage ? I think the switches on my machine were just powered off the 5v BOB

.
Can you get 5v ones? Seems a bit of a pain to have to step down the signal to 5v with resistors etc.

I am also a bit puzzled by the purpose of wiring them in parallel. I guess for just stopping the machine in an emergency it doesn`t matter but if I want to use them for homing won`t I need to tell which one is which. I have 5 inputs on the spare
BOB so one each should be ok.

Is normally closed better so if something breaks they trigger ?

Are this type Ok https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TL-Q5MC2-...frcectupt=true
They look easier to mount than the round threaded ones.

As for the energy chains those ARKO ones do look posh, and a good price too. I will investigate the postage / customs implications and see how they compare to the others. I like the little separator bits to guide the cables within the chain, very neat.

Thanks

Ollie

[paulus.v]

Hi Ollie,

The best way to go is using both switches wired in series with the estop and sensors for homing/soft limits. 24V is the industrial standard as it is more resistant to noise/interference/contact oxidation/etc.

You do not need to step down the signal if using NPN sensors and your controller allows you to use NPN.

Having the sensors wired to separate inputs allows you to home all axes simultaneously. No other major benefits.

The safety limit switches need to be wired NC, for the sensors it doesn't matter.

I have no experience with the no-name sensors as I was using only expensive ones. You can use one sensor for each axis if you mount them on the moving part while having two end-targets.

I have used only Igus cable chains. They are not the cheapest but very good industrial quality.