Anybody have an alternative to paying 50.cents for these stupid little Anderson retaining clips?
Zip ties (two small ones end to end between the wires work just fine). Not pretty, not reusable, but cheap.
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We used to use zip ties or electrical tape if it was needed, although it was not usually necessary as they tend to stay together pretty well. Now we use WAGO connectors and that holds the wires together quite well. Then they can be zip tied, taped, or put in a 3d printed bracket for more organization.
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Luckily you can reuse the housings, just need to replace contacts.
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I posted the price of the Anderson Connectors in my team’s discord server, this is what my mentor said:
bet it works better then 30 amp wires twisted together and wrapped around with tape
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A narrow zip tie will pass through the same holes you use for the clip. The little 4" ones we use for most wire bundling work great. We zip tie most PP connections, but keep a few of the clips around for use where they need to be more easily removed/replaced, or for larger built-up groups of PP connectors.
We tried 3D printing some clips last year but they were quite weak and easily broken, so they never made it onto a robot.
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A similar kit (with 30 amp metal contacts instead of 45 amp) is 113$ at robobitz and it actually shipped faster to Texas despite being located in Canada than Andymark did.
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Idk man my starter motor power circuit involves a wire nut and that’s been chooching for like, 20 years now. Some waterproof tape would probably do nicely on top of that.
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Where are you pricing those from? Buying from powerwerx is about 40% cheaper than that.
Those really aren’t that expensive when you consider the costs of what goes on our robots.
Price what it would cost for wago 221s. Or what a spool of 100 feet of pure copper wire costs. Or one kraken motor, or one neo with speed controller.
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Their post with the price being referenced was a screenshot of AndyMark’s website.
Yikes.
Unless I’m missing something obvious, the housings are $0.48 a piece from powerwerx, and the metal connectors are $0.20. Much cheaper.
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I’ve never found a need to use the retaining clips as long as the contacts are properly inserted. However, I have bent 10 Gauge solid steel or copper wire to hold APP blocks together in lieu of roll pins; this should also work as a retaining clip.
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I’ll second the Powerwerx suggestion. We never buy the connectors from anyone else.
We 3D print our own clips.
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We print these, we’ve used them the past few years. Made some in PLA and some in ABS. Specifically the file PP_Clip_90. We break those little pins off in the middle because they’re pretty useless but these do a good job at holding connections together
Their purpose in this design is to confirm that the connector is fully mated, not to provide strength.
(Edit: and they’re actually redundant, see below, I didn’t see the feature on the side at first)
We’ve done zipties and the injection molded ones, and the zipties will probably win this year.
I should have clarified better, but we do it because they’re so thin they bust immediately when we try and put the connectors on so we don’t worry about it. The grooves on the sides only lock in correctly if it’s aligned correctly, so not a big deal
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In my experience basic 4 inch zipties work great for anderson power pole connectors and you can get them for less than a cent each.