I have seen in several places that people don’t pass the router power cable inside the drag chain because interference.
Is this real? or it is this like homeopathy, Bach drops, etc and people just feel safer zip-tieing their cables outside the drag chain?
I ran my router wire inside drag chain. Had to disconnect wire from router to run. I’ve had no problems.
Electromagnetic interference is an actual issue, not just pretend like homeopathy. It is not typically an issue with routers, but it was a huge problem with the original spindle. After 10ish hours, it would start falling apart and the pixies would start dancing anywhere they wanted to. That caused lot of huge spikes in EM, which would carry over to the stepper motor wires and the homing switch wires and cause lost steps and even failed jobs. If you search the forums, there’ll be quite a few threads where the idea of using shielded cable comes up just because the shielding helped minimize the effect of the increased EM on the wires inside the shielding.
Note how I said it’s “typically” not an issue with routers. There have been recent examples where brushes have worn out and the motor becomes more electrically noisy, causing lost or gained steps because of the proximity of the motor and its wiring to the stepper wires. It’s a possibility with routers, but it’s easy to monitor and fix before it becomes an issue.
There are two ways to prevent/minimize the effects of the EM interference on the stepper wires: shielding and separation. If you have used shielded wiring on the steppers, and the shielding is actually properly grounded, then that’s a big positive electrical preventive maintenance step that you’ve completed. If it’s improperly grounded, it may as well not even be there. Alternatively (or additionally), you can keep the router wiring physically separated from the stepper motor wires. Every bit of distance helps since the relationship between distance and levels is an inverse square (IIRC), so just keeping the router wire ~1/8" away from the stepper motors due to the thickness of the drag chain is more positive electrical preventive maintenance.
That’s all general information, the equations governing 120V 60Hz/220V 50Hz can get infinitely complicated. Suffice it to say, unless you’ve grounded your shielded cables properly and you regularly inspect the brushes on your router motor, keeping the router power cable outside the drag chain has good potential to keep you from completely wrecking a multi-hour job if the brushes reach the point of no return…
