New build in Tampa area

Ok, I got my parts from Ryan fairly quickly after I ordered them, however, I was unable to start until Friday night (and even that was very minimal work. It’s now Sunday afternoon and I have some of the printed parts assembled. Here are some images from what I’ve done so far (no pics of the assembled pieces yet, those will likely come later tonight).






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Love to see the creative solutions to the table. Looking forward to the rest of the build.

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Hey, what part of Tampa?

Thanks. I was going to build the legs out of 2x4 and then decided I’d just split this shelving unit in half. Turns out the top and bottom halves aren’t equal so I made do :wink:

Hudson, bordering on Spring Hill. Northwest Pasco county

I know it well! Grew up in Port richey and spent a lot of time at rj Strickland ‘beach’.

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Oh, nice to hear. Are you still local?

You really cut the tubes with a manual tube cutter??? :open_mouth:
I tried it on my stainless steel tubes with 2mm wall thickness and quit after 1,5h not really making any progress.
The only thing I could manage was getting blisters on my hands and blood… :rofl::rofl::sweat_smile:

No, I moved away about 10 years ago. For all the things I enjoyed, I just couldn’t get ahead there.

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Yep, this one is specifically a tube and conduit cutter. Cut pretty nice too.

Ok, I’d like to make a PSA. before spending hours trying to square your middle assembly, or gantry, or whatever the proper name is, check to make sure your square is square. You do this by putting one edge against your table, making sure it’s in line with the edge and draw a line along the other leg. Then flip the square over and repeat trying to draw over the first line. The 2 lines should land on each other. This is what I have:


That’s about close to how off my middle assembly was. I guess I’ll just move on now.

sigh smh

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Ok, getting ready to wire this up, but I’m wondering if I need to use the wire sleeve inside the conduit also or if I just need it at the ends that go in and out?

Also, I plan on using the tape measure trick (just picked up some 1/2 inch tape measures from HF for $1.99 each) and I was wondering, do I just put the tape measure in teh wire sleeve or do I wrap it in it’s own wire sleeve and then put all that in a second sleeve with the wires? I ask because I can’t find any definite answer, but I saw on the HAD page an image that looked like that’s what the original user did. Thoughts?

I’m going to start dinner and then I’ll be back at this later. Thanks in advance for any help.

Oh and also is looping and taking the preferred method of connection the wiring or has someone come up with something better (ie, hot glue)?

I had similar questions when I wired mine up. I can only offer what I did, but have no idea if it’s standard or not…

I bought two spools of this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074GPT9Q5 one in 1/4" and one in 3/8" (100ft in each spool). I loomed the wires all the way from the motors to the control board - so my wires are loomed within the conduit. I found I could get at most two sets of motor wires in the 1/4 sleeve. Whenever wires came together I would join then into a new length of sleeve - generally this was the 3/8 sleeving.

For the tape measure - I ran a separate set of sleeving that wrapped a section of the measuring tape (with ends covered in electrical tape) and the wires (already in their own sleeve).

For the ends of the sleeving I used zipties after the looming was complete to stop them unraveling.

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I’m pretty sure that folding and taping is still considered the best method. It sounds pretty dire if those connections come apart.

IRT your square, when I was building my table, I found out that my tape measure and my square differed in distance, by something like an eighth of an inch over 2’! Even for rough carpentry, that’s pretty rough!

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I had a similar experience where I was putting in flooring and my wife and I had different take measures and see was calling out sizes and I was cutting. Turns out our take measures were about an eighth of an inch of when the metal ran was pushed in. Turns out that the cheap harbor freight one u had given her to measure with was of. I went out and bought another fat Max that day.

And thanks for answering the question about how to tape down the connections.

Ok, I had ordered the 3/8 from Ryan (50 feet) so based on your message I just ordered the 1/2 inch from Amazon (100 feet) so that should be here soon and then I’ll double them up. Thanks for the info.

So last night I tried using kapton tape to hold the connectors as shows in this image:

and as I tried to snug them into the wire sleeve, the endstop wires disconnected. So I think tonight I’ll hot glue the connectors together and then continue the wiring. This is something I’ve done in the past and it has worked well for me (you can either freeze it with compressed air and pry it off or just hit it with a heat gun and wipe the glue away in the event that you want to disconnect it) so I’m going to do that here as well, while leaving the kapton tape in place on the loop to act as a sort of strain relief on the wire.

Updates to follow

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I put a loop of electrical tape around the connectors as well to keep them from unplugging from each other. I would have sworn that the pics in the assembly instructions showed that, but looking at them now I see only the pic you showed above…

yeah, that was my real concern, tbh, and I’m glad that it came apart when it did because TBH, it would’ve sucked if it happened after it was in the sleeve and I didn’t see it and then I’d have to rewire the whole thing.

I 3d printed a little flat part that lays across the dupount housings with holes for slipping zip ties through, a zip tie on each end for strain relief on the wires and 1 zip tie in the middle to hold the housings down… I can’t find the file I made, must have deleted them. I’ll have to draw it up again because I do need to make some more. I’ll try to remember to share if you’re interested.

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