Printed wire twister

Things You've Made
1

A few years ago I designed and printed a wire twister that I used when wiring my 3D printer and sand tables. While it worked fine, it required clamping each end of each wire with a screw, providing ample opportunity to stab oneself with the screwdriver.

I just redesigned and printed it so no screwdriver is required. The wires are clamped in the tool using Wago 221 lever nuts. My initial idea was to clamp the fixed part of the tool to a table using a C-clamp, but I decided that shouldn’t be necessary and redesigned it so the fixed part of the wire twister is a C-clamp.

printed wire twister
printed wire twister1920×1465 233 KB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNFe_rvJPA

I wrote a blog post on it- you can grab a link to the CAD file here.

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2

I twisted a ton of wires in my college lab classes. We would either just hold the ends (we were partners in lab) or we would use the bnc connectors and various lab equipment (not recommended). We would just chuck the wires in the drill. The wires would go in where a drill bit would go, and then bend out each side of the 3 jaw chuck.

This is much safer and more elegant.

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That was my approach installing car stereo stuff, too. The other end I’d just tie around a table leg or something, then cut it off.

although I never had an accident with that method, this does seem safer, and is certainly less wasteful.

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I used to do the same thing, but I used a lot of teflon insulated wire and it kept slipping out of the chuck unless I closed it so tightly that it chewed up the insulation. This definitely works much better. The Wagos are good for 24-12 gauge wire, which covers almost all the wire you’ll ever use to wire a 3D printer or CNC machine.

The Wago lever nuts are really nice for wiring machines, too. I used a bunch of the 5 position type to make expansion busses for my printer when I wired it- that makes it easy to add additional stuff later on by simply inserting wires and snapping the lever down. I designed some printable brackets to hold the Wagos on flat surfaces or t-slot, but when I wired my printer I found that hot melt glue works fine, too, and is a lot faster.

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That technique requires stripping the wires after twisting, which tends to mess up the neatly twisted wire. With the Wagos, you can strip the wire before twisting and then install the nicely twisted wire without messing up the twist.

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I’ve been doing the vise and drill method for decades… never had an issue. Clamp two or more wires by one end in the vice, the other ends in the chuck of a drill. Go slow and don’t over twist. Looks great going from terminals to a device or pushbutton etc. I will say, anything more than six, use wire loom of some sort.

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