Wire harness question

[AviationGuy]

I am going to clean up the wiring on my machine and have been looking at the nifty IGUS bundled cables. My question relates to having 4 stepper wires within the same cable as 2 limit switch wires. Also, 8 wires for two different steppers within the same cable. Is this advisable or should these be kept in their own separate bundled cables?

Thanks in advance.

[deckingman]

@aviationguy Others are better qualified to answer your question than I, but I can say that running sensor wires (i.e. PT100s and to a lesser extent NTC thermistors) alongside stepper motor wires leads to noisy signals and spurious readings on the sensors. Limit switches being binary high/low might be OK. Personally, I always twist the stepper motor wires and keep them well away from any signal wires.

[rjenkinsgb]

If you used a multi twisted pair, it should be OK electrically - but one with large enough cores for low voltage drops with steppers is likely to be rather heavy and bulky.

For my machines, I strip down or make twisted pairs of appropriate gauges for steppers or sensors, then bundle them using braided sleeving.

That makes a minimal size, light and flexible cable.

[AviationGuy]

Thank you for the feedback.