Direct Drive Extruder Cable Support

thingiverse

This is a cable management support for the Micro Swiss direct drive extruder kit for the Ender 3 printer. The support clips to the extruder stepper motor and the cables are attached to the arm using cable ties. The purpose of this device is to avoid flexing of the extruder stepper motor cable where it plugs into the motor. The first photo shows my original setup for the Micro Swiss direct drive extruder kit. The stepper motor extension cable is tied to the other cables using cable ties. With this arrangement, the wires can flex at the motor connector and can cause failure of the cable. In my case the right-most wire (looking from the front) failed, causing the extruder to rock back-and-forth. Checking continuity of the extension cable confirmed that the right-most wire was no longer connected even though the plastic insulation did not break. I modified the X/Z cable chain motor clip designed by CR83D to provide a support for the hot end cables to keep the stepper motor cable from flexing at the connector. This should prevent a recurrence of the failure that I experienced. [Of course, the modification could result in stress elsewhere on the cable causing a failure at a different point. Time will tell.] The second picture shows the first working version of the cable support in place on the extruder motor. I have increased the arm thickness to improve the strength (after breaking two of the arms while trying to tie up the cables). The third picture shows the cables tied to the arm using cable ties. I have verified that this clip does not affect the x-axis hot end travel over the range from home to 225 mm. There is no motion at the connector with the cables tied in place. The design has some ears with holes to allow a cable tie to secure the clip in place, but I have not needed to use that feature.