Can 5,000 be far behind? 
1 Like
Well we have the postal import thing as a possibility of the epacket going away. That should bring in some smaller orders if that happens. Initially my products cost more because I bought too many for it to ship epacket, so I paid very high shipping. Now I have the volume to get a nice product price but still pay high shipping. I have been negotiating my first LCL shipment for a few weeks now and I have a pallet of 48,000 bearings on the slow boat as of about 4 hours ago. That will drastically cut shipping prices but has the possibility of adding 25-35% import tax, taking much longer, and having a metric ton of money literally floating on the water. Once all that gets to be the norm I should be in a better place but right now, things are much tighter than they were.
Times they are a changing. I can tell you all right now. I am doing my best not to raise prices (hence the 20% profit decrease). If the epacket goes away, I have no doubt many companies will raise prices just because they can, a company of any substantial size should see no price effect from the epacket thing. I am trying to benefit from an order increase not a price gouging.
Yep, sorry about that. I red later on other threads that you actually werenāt a noob, so my apologies for assuming you were.
Itās just that it was a bit hard for me to imagine that an experienced DIYer would complain about Dupont connectors not being safe. It kind of sounds obvious, at least to me, that those connectors can pop out any time and you must find a way to keep them secured, either by attaching your cables together with a tie wrap, by using hot glue or by soldering them if youāre paranoid like me. Maybe this should be written somewhere in the instructions, I donāt know if it is.
Whatās wrong with cloth tape? Or heatshrink for inline connectors? Iāve taken apart and repaired alot of electronics and the stuff is good enough for manufacturingā¦ Just saying.
Just because there are instructions doesnāt mean to abandon all ingenuity or common sense.
We have a ten percent rule at work, and Iāve kept all my fingers this longā¦ Try to be 10 percent smarter than what your working with. Seems to me itās just a bunch of wood and metal.
Ā
Ā
Ā
Cloth tape gets gross after a while. Heat shrink works, but Iāve had the pins pull out of the connectors.
My search for suitable connectors brought me to this thread.
I was looking at xlrās and just browsing mouser/digikey, they struck me as very expensive.
Perhaps someone could design something for 3d printing that both secures and provides strain relief to standard connectors? Something a bit cleaner than tape or hot glue. Iām thinking along these lines: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2781562 maybe with zip tie mounts on the ends for strain relief (My CAD skills are still currently āunder developmentā)
Any ideas?
Any case or mount you put your board in should have suitable strain relief. Mine all have holes for cable ties, others use screws or clips.
I see what you mean. I suppose Iāve diverged from OPās situation, but Iām more referring to the connection at the motor. I like the idea of having removable/replaceable cabling with a plug at or near the motor/mount. Iām thinking along the lines of this: https://youtu.be/IjwD5smOt38?t=323 but maybe cleaner/more secure?
Just spitballing, because I donāt really know whatās available, but it would be neat if for example the top edge of the printed motor mount were extended up and allowed for the installation of a panel mount locking connector of some sort, the motor would plug in the back side of it while the cables in the side.
You can buy steppers that are built that way. I prefer the opposite so I carry the hardwired ones.
Is it purely preference or are there performance reasons?
Choices have to be made at some point.
I chose these because there are less things to go wrong , I think it is cleaner, and the price tends to be better in smaller bulk orders.
Understood (and appreciated).
I suppose what Iām also addressing is this: āYou should tape or otherwise secure the connections to relieve any stress of repetitive motion. Matching clip side to clip side should make your steppers more in the correct directions, if not flip one of the stepper plugs to reverse its direction.ā
Anyway, Iām thinking 100 steps ahead of where I need be at the momentā¦
Ā
That needs to be adjustable, depending on build orientation. I am of the mindset, why build/buy/print a part when 1" of tape works better. Some people accessorize the heck out of everything, I donāt. Engineers get brainwashed into trying to find the optimalā¦not always the coolest solution.
1 Like
Thatās funny, the engineers I work with are brainwashed into overdoing everything! 
government contractsā¦
First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?
1 Like
āWhy sell parts when weāre the only source of the whole assembly!ā Is more like it.