Check your cables

[mdwalker]

This is an issue I had a couple of days ago. Everyone might want to check their cables for wear. This is a Samson 510 where the wiring harness exits near the top of the tube and attaches to the swing arm. I guess after many years of use it wore through the insulation on the wiring. I was cutting parts when fire and sparks started flying. I replaced the wiring harness ($180 with shipping). I was fortunate there seems to be no damage to the controller and all is working fine. It also burned through the torch cable insulation and burned one wire into and a hole in the air line. I was able to splice the airline and wire and all is back up and running now. It could have been much more expensive!

[DieselFumes]

Well thats a bummer! Thanks for the helpful tip, gonna check mine

[djreiswig]

So that spring holds the harness tight against the metal piece? It looks like that is asking for trouble. I would cover the metal piece with some rubber, or cover the harness with rubber to prevent the spring from rubbing into it. A strain relief would be even better.

[Joe Jones]

I drilled a matching oblong hole on the opposite side of the vertical tube and ran the cable through to the OUTside, where it runs up along the tube, and with a bit of slack, then runs along the swing arm of the 510. In this way, I can more easily reposition the cables, or separate them for various tasks where the gantry or carriage motors are not in their traditional places ... such as when running a stand alone pipe cutter!

It makes it EASY to run the cables directly from the controller box to the pipe cutter without losing that seven feet (?) of cable length running through the square tubing to the top end.

I think it was a STUPID design to run the cables inside of the tubing. Yes, it was "sexy" but what do you do when you want to test the cables for shorts or whatever? With the cables running on the outside of the boom arm, it is a simple task to replace the main wiring harness with a new one, to see if that solves the problem of communication errors or machine malfunctions, etc. Simple "C" cable retainers allow for quick attachment to the tubes without zip ties.

https://www.target.com/p/startech-com-1 ... nk=sametab

Joe