Red dot help again

For the 3rd time in 3 weeks one of the wires has broken in the drag chain for my laser pointers. Anyone else have any better ideas on how to run wires to it so this problem will stop happening?

Use higher quality wires? Perhaps with a more flexible core?

I ran new better wires last time, problem is there is only so much room in the drag link with the air line in there. Guess I could pull the air line out and run it another way.

You can get arbitrary sizes of drag chain from EBay pretty easily. They’re usually measured by interior space, so measure the inside of what you have (and the length) and try getting something a touch larger maybe.

Thanks, just don’t want to get anything larger and it not fit in the groove. But I’ll look…thanks

Can you post a picture of your current setup? Maybe there is something else going on.

Make sure you use stranded wires, not solid.

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Alternately, cable tie the wires to the top of the drag chain, if you’re worried that the solder point will break again.

From my experience as a home mechanic and motorcyclist, mechanical joins with crimps tend to survive repeated motion a lot better than solder joints do. Another option is to solder the wires much closer to the laser head, at a point where cable movement doesn’t occur, and run a complete and unbroken cable through the drag chain.

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The 2nd time it broke, I removed the drag chain, pulled everything out and made my new connection before the wire even goes into the drag chain, only other option I know to do is cable tie the air hose to the outside of the chain and leave the wires inside to be protected. I have seen other laser that had air assist added later just have the air line ran over the top of the laser head and tied up out of the way. That may be the way I go…

The answer is a combining lens setup, more accurate and no wires to the head. Gene

I’m just finishing up my design for mounting a beam combiner at the moment. As soon as it’s done and workable, I’ll post the .lbrn files in the finished work section. I’ll add a link here to make finding it easier.

Thanks… that would be of great help.

Not sure what size system you are working with but this could be an interesting solution in the right configuration. Anyone have experience with these TR series tubes?

http://www.laserwd.com/products_tr-series-laser-tube_2017.html

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just to verify you are using stranded wire correct? If you use solid core it will break much quicker than stranded as its not that resilient to repeated bending. Yes, its a basic question, But you would be amazed at the things we can overlook in the moment.