Twisting wires

lolorc

Hi !

I'm redoing my T3P3 Kossel XL wiring, I bought some silicone wires to replace the old ones. I'm also going to remove the breakout pcb (too prone to shorts, duponts doesn't hold firm, and it's also in the way when changing filament)

The wiring loom is probably about 150cm long, how important is it to twist the wires together ? (it's not really convenient to twist silicone wires, they doesn't hold well)
wires are for hotend power, hotend thermistor, ir probe sensor, one 12V fan, one 24 fan, a set of leds, and since I have a spare MPU6050 I'm considering sticking it to the effector to observe effector tilt.
I guess the most important ones to twist would be the ones for the ir probe, the thermistor and the mpu6050/µC

Would you have any advice on that matter please ?

dc42

The important wires to twist are those for the PT100 temperature or thermocouple sensor, if you use either of those. The thermistor and IR sensor inputs are filtered, so not very sensitive to interference. But if you have the opportunity, it does no harm to twist them.

lolorc

Ok thanks for the answer.
I'll try to twist them as much as I can, I've tried with AWG20 yesterday, it doesn't hold at all. I guess I can try to plait them

dc42

Taking an existing bundle of wires and trying to twist it won't work because it twists each individual wire as well as the bundle, and they will just untwist. You need to wrap the wires around each other without twisting them individually.

Another simple solution is to buy multicore cable, e.g. 3 core for an IR sensor, or 4-core for a PT100. These cables have a gentle twist in them already, probably not enough for a thermocouple but sufficient for the PT100 in my delta printer.

DjDemonD

I know a lot of people use LAN cables, they have twisted pairs in them already, they're cheap and readily available and would be suitable for sensors/motors(to a point)/endstops/fans. I'm not sure heaters are suitable but they aren't adversely affected by interference.

I don't use thermocouples or PT100's which are highly amplified, but I've never seen adverse effects of interference, from un-twisted wiring.

lolorc

Thanks for the answers.
I took my time and managed to twist my pairs !
I needed to replace my wire loom, decided to use silicone wires to potentially reduce their effect on the effector.