So this one made some waves when Shai Schechter announced it almost a year

3D Printing
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@Jeff_DeMaagd No, dangling wires are not a fact of life. That has to belong to its own category of fallacy.

Wiring is a function of the housing/frame, not the component. Due to the fact that you do not know what housing the component will go to, you will never know the correct length of wire to extend from the component, so the correct thing to do is make the component’s wire length effectively zero, and make the wiring a function of the frame.

The vast majority of sane batteries, from small cells to car batteries, do NOT have wires dangling off of them.

Because wiring is a function of the housing/frame, not the component.

Look at the stepper motors. You can have stepper motors with wires dangling off of them, or you can have stepper motors with the JST or whatever connectors built into the base.

The motors with the JST connectors built into the base are preferable because, again, wiring is a function of the frame and not the component.

Look inside your computer. Do you see wires directly dangling off your hard drives, cd drives, or expansion cards?

No, because the wiring is a function of the case you put these components into, not the component. So the wire length coming from the component is zero.

There are lots, and lots, and lots of examples for this, and every counter-example you can find is a matter of legacy and probably should be changed anyways.

3d printing is too young to already be developing this legacy.

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@Richard_Kranium What’s the fallacy for where you claim I wrote something that I didn’t say? I didn’t say dangling. I said, and I quote: “Wires are a fact of life. You can make them tidy or not.”

I don’t know about your examples. I don’t like motors with the JST connectors on the housing. I think it’s better to terminate them somewhere else.

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@Jeff_DeMaagd Do you think it is appropriate for wires to be directly hanging off this hotend instead of having them terminated on-unit on a PCB?

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Wires can be easily secured in such a way that I think a PCB on the hot end seems like adding cost and parts without enough benefit to justify it.

OK, say you have a PCB on the cold end with connectors to the machine. Then what, there’s kapton circuit to the heater and thermistor? Even if it’s direct solder to heater and thermal sensor, it seems like extra parts, extra joints, extra cost and complexity in an extreme environment that can be circumvented with a few well-placed zip-ties without having “wires flopping about”.

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In regards to wire management, take a look here:

https://plus.google.com/+shaischechter/posts/B87pRhT1few