The New Hotness

Adapting the sewing machine cable clips for larger USB cables:

LED Cable Clips - solid model — LED Cable Clips – solid model

The calculation positioning the posts wasn’t quite right; they now touch the cable OD at their midline and converge slightly overhead to retain it.

They’re great candidates for sequential printing:

LED Cable Clips - Slic3r - sequential print — LED Cable Clips – Slic3r – sequential print

With the basement at 14 °C, any cooling is too much: the platform heater can’t keep the bed above the thermal cutout temperature, the firmware concludes the thermistor has failed, and shuts the printer off. So I popped the four finished clips off the platform, removed the skirt, unplugged the fan, rebooted that sucker, and restarted the print.

One clip in the front keeps the cable away from the power switch and speed control directly below the gooseneck mount:

USB Gooseneck Mount - cable clip — USB Gooseneck Mount – cable clip

A few clips in the back route the cable from the COB LED epoxied directly onto the bandsaw frame away from the motor enclosure:

Bandsaw platform COB LED - cable clips — Bandsaw platform COB LED – cable clips

They’re mounted on double-sided foam tape. The COB LED on the frame isn’t anything to write home about, but you can see the foam tape peeking out around the clip base:

Unlike those LED filaments, it seems you can gently bend the aluminum substrate under a COB LED.

The bandsaw platform now has plenty of light: a fine upgrade!

Yeah, you can buy stick-on cable anchors, but what’s the fun in that? These fit exactly, hold securely, and work just fine.

The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// LED Cable Clips
	// Ed Nisley – KE4ZNU – October 2014
	// February 2017 – adapted for USB cables

	Layout = "Show"; // Show Build

	//- Extrusion parameters must match reality!

	ThreadThick = 0.25;
	ThreadWidth = 0.40;

	HoleWindage = 0.2; // extra clearance

	Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly

	function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit);

	//———————-
	// Dimensions

	Base = [15.0,15.0,6*ThreadThick]; // base over sticky square

	CableOD = 3.8;

	BendRadius = 5.0;

	CornerRadius = Base[0]/5;
	CornerSides = 4*4;

	NumSides = 6*3;

	//– Oval clip with central passage

	module OvalPass() {

	intersection() {
	hull()
	for (i=[-1,1], j=[-1,1])
	translate([i(Base[0]/2 – CornerRadius),j(Base[1]/2 – CornerRadius),0])
	rotate(180/CornerSides)
	cylinder(r=CornerRadius,h=Base[2] + 1.00*CableOD,$fn=CornerSides,center=false);

	union() {
	translate([0,0,Base[2]/2]) // oversize mount base
	scale([2,2,1])
	cube(Base,center=true);

	for (j=[-1,1]) // bending ovals
	translate([0,j(Base[1]/2 – 0.125(Base[1] – CableOD)/2),(Base[2] – Protrusion)])
	resize([Base[0]/0.75,0,0])
	cylinder(d1=0.75*(Base[1]-CableOD),
	d2=(Base[1]-CableOD)/cos(0*180/NumSides),
	h=(CableOD + Protrusion),
	center=false,$fn=NumSides);
	}
	}

	if (Layout == "Show")
	color("Red",0.3)
	translate([0,0,Base[2] + CableOD/2])
	rotate([0,90,0])
	cylinder(d=CableOD,h=2*Base[0],center=true,$fn=48);

	}

	//———————-
	// Build it

	OvalPass();

view raw LED Cable Clips.scad hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The New Hotness

Bandsaw Worklight: LED Cable Clips