If Iupgrade to Elite, what about my 80mm VFD?

I am keen to get the Elite upgrade kit for my X35 Woodworker but I will need to get the upgraded Z axis and since it has bigger rails will I need a new 80mm mount for my VFD as well? Where do you have that for sale?

I just set up my Elite Onefinity with the 80 mm water spindle. Just discounted that I can’t put the coolant lines and power cable in the supplied drag chains. I search all over for a 30 mm wide drag chain to no avail. Wish they thought about that. Maybe they will offer an up grade.

You will find this as part of a discussion here…ELITE Upgrade Kit FAQ

After ordering and closer to delivery, Onefinity will contact you asking which mount size you want (65 or 80mm) with the new Z20 Elite assembly.

I made my own drag chain mounts and used 35mm wide ones off eBay as I have a water cooled VFD.
I can give you plans if you want.
See my blog http://theemptyheader.blogspot.com/
May 3 CNC Project part 3. Hope this helps. When I upgrade to Elite soon Iwil be keeping my drag chains.

Thanks TMToronto, I will be ordering shortly :smiley:

Hey GregZo,

for your VFD? For me, a VFD is this. Did you really mean “VFD”?

Thank you for blogging about your CNC projects! It’s always a pleasure to see the details of such a project and with good photos.

The only thing that is a bit surprising is that you did not make the drag chain wider, and be it as reserve for possible future additions. In my understanding, for a machine with water-cooled, but non-ATC spindle, when it comes to Drag Chain Width Computation I see 50 mm for the X axis and 76 mm for the Y axis as minimum.

Aiph5u,
I didn’t see that computation page I did my own sums based on the cables and pipes I had and the size looked fine to me. I have plenty of room in them as is. I should add that the plugs on the end of the cables will be a limiter as well, I based mine on the existing plugs and some extended leads I bought from an Etsy person: the Elite series plugs are much bigger from the video I saw so not sure what will happen there, I may need to make my own cables and get replacement plugs to suit. I hope that is not the case as my attempts to use those special plug pin tools have not worked well for me so far. I much prefer soldering wires to pins.

Hey GregZo,

yes, the Elite stepper motors with integrated stepper drivers and the Elite power supply unit have other connector dimensions, but they use the same Molex/Amphenol tin-plated crimp terminals.

Crimping your own Molex/Amphenol connectors to make your own Onefinity custom cables is possible, but requires owning the exact matching crimping pliers (or crimping die insert), and of course the exact matching wire gauge according to datasheet, otherwise the electrical connection will not be safe. I described what you need to make your own Onefinity cables here and here. But I believe many people solder them (and and incur the disadvantages).

Wow, thanks Aiph5u. I was shocked at the price for the correct Molex crimping tool ($324US!) and the Amphenol one is $1,231 ! I wish this were a joke. I think I will put that on the wait list and see how things look when I get the kit.

Hey GregZo,

of course you find no-name chinese counterfeits for a fraction of the price in the www. What is important is to be sure that when you buy one, it is really for the specific Molex / Amphenol contact used on the Onefinity. The crimp connection is only safe if it matches.

I own a crimping pliers with interchangeable dies, so if I wanted to make some custom length cables for the Onefinity, I would buy the Die for connectors in the Mini-Fit™ series from Molex LLC, but I saw it is much more expensive than any other dies that I own, it’s about 200 €, while usually the dies are at 50 €. So maybe the pliers and the dies are so expensive because of licensing fees. I don’t know.

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