topic Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part? in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

How to hold electrical wires on a part?

Anonymous — Fri, 06 May 2016 08:01:37 GMT

Sorry, it is not a CAD question, but we need some help and you might be helpful.

We are looking for a solution to hold two Power cables on a 3D printed part. This part is installed in a vibrating environment. So we need the cables to be pressed not to move and not to transfer vibrations to electrical components. We have thought about a C shape holder, but it would surely not maintain cables enough. We also looked for components sold on the market but nothing meets our requirements. Our product must be adaptable on existing systems, so we can't control the diameter and flexibility of the wires. We have to find a solution which deals with it.

Here is a picture to help you to understand. Thank you in advance !

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

HughesTooling — Fri, 06 May 2016 09:39:52 GMT

You might be able to get a flexible strain relief boot, there are some you slide onto cables that might work.

Mark

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

Anonymous — Fri, 06 May 2016 12:05:04 GMT

Do you have any idea on how we can install the flexible strain relief boot ?

At the moment, we are trying to consider a solution where we don't have any control on cabling. We have to find something to avoid vibrations to destroy the PCB.

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

HughesTooling — Fri, 06 May 2016 12:22:29 GMT

May be something like this, the ones I've seen have an o-ring inside and you tighten the strain relief onto the coupling to squeeze the wire. Another option is to just use an o-ring on the wires and squeeze it between the two haves of the housing or have a screw in bush to squeeze the o-ring. Nothing's going to work if the wire vary from 10mm to 0.5mm though.

Mark

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

Anonymous — Fri, 06 May 2016 13:21:31 GMT

Do you think it might be possible to integer a 3D-printed solution to the enclosure (without increasing too much the volume) ? The wire's diameter won't vary that much, but we really have to pinch it. That's the problem !

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

HughesTooling — Fri, 06 May 2016 14:34:58 GMT

Are the wires separate or both in one cable. Can you have a screw on cap over the wires and use an O-ring or rubber washer? You might even get away with a tight fitting slot. I don't have any experience with 3d printing, I make injection moulds, I've made a few enclosures and compressing an O-ring onto cables has worked quite well.

Mark

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

fulcrumusa — Fri, 06 May 2016 15:26:05 GMT

You just need to hold the wires securely so they don't slip out while not adding weight or modifying the enclosure? If so, why not use these along with some zip ties? You can just stick them to the 3d printed part.

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

HughesTooling — Fri, 06 May 2016 16:36:35 GMT

Going with the cable tie idea, if you're printing the enclosure can you leave 2 slots for a cable tie and pull the wires down onto some foam. I'm thinking a fairly hard foam like neoprene.

Mark

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

Anonymous — Mon, 09 May 2016 08:34:32 GMT

Thank you for your both replies. We have two separated wires.

We thought about this kind of solutions, but it would be better if we don't increase the time of installation. We thought about some solution where you just have to push the wires on it to pinch them. But we don't know how we can do it.

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

fulcrumusa — Mon, 09 May 2016 18:12:23 GMT

If the box is 3d printed, why can't you just print a couple of U-shaped features of the right gauge to hold the wires. That will allow you to have a push-to-snap quick solution.

Re: How to hold electrical wires on a part?

Anonymous — Tue, 10 May 2016 07:29:36 GMT

Yes, we thought about that but the diameter of the wires is likely to change a little. If we do a U-shape, it won't be adaptable on any diameter (even if the diameter doesn't vary from 0.1 mm to 10 mm)