Tips on wiring robot

Hi everyone, I am looking for solution to an issue that at the moment is not that bad but is something I want to try and fix sooner than later, am trying to fix how to “untangle” the wires or better ways of connecting cables with wagos or other way because I am having issues like the one in the picture where the wire is just impossible to connect with a wago and the only solution we have come up is cutting a bit more of cable, the issue comes that in the long term the cables specially the Sp

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I don’t want to be. “That guy,” but my advice is don’t use WAGOs on your main power cabling as a standard practice. We use either Anderson’s, or solder heat shrink with flux, depending on the situation, and only use wagos as a hotfix between close matches.

I’ve never been able to get scrungled wires perfectly straight again but it may help to twist left and right a little bit as you pull on the strands.

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Your solution depends on where you are plugging these in, and there are a couple of different solutions all to the same problem that offer different benefits.

If these wires are plugging directly into the PDP or PDH - you are looking wire ferrules. They come in different sizes for different sized wire, and need a wire-ferrule crimper to form the correct shape (for PDP/PDH a square crimp is recommended).

If you want more flexibility/ability to remove these devices others will recommend adding a connector between your power source and load (i.e. PDH and motor) - many teams use the Anderson PP45 series for this purpose. Others use inline wago 221’s.

As @DunaganM mentioned - straightening out the wire strands you have takes small twisting motions while pulling on the strands with your fingers in a glove or another soft surface protecting your skin from cuts. It wont ever go perfectly straight again, the copper strands will have small kinks in them going forward. If you really want a new clean worksurface you already mentioned the solution - cut off the exposed area and strip back some more insulation to get a clean section of wire to work with going forward (then perhaps use one of the termination methods linked above to prevent the problem going forward)

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How would the “solder heat shrink with flux” solution go?

Will look forward into it, thanks!

Not sure if it’s because they are tangled or because I’ve only used them with smaller gauge wires, but those wires look to be stripped a bit to short which could affect how well they hold. There is a strip gage on the side of the Wagos for reference.

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From your photo, I don’t think you have stripped enough of the wire to work correctly in the WAGO 221. If you look on the side of the connector, there’s a helpful indicator showing you what the recommended 11mm of stripped length is.

[edit: sniped by @AdamF :slight_smile: ]

We have used WAGOs exclusively for the past three years, with way fewer issues than we had when we used Powerpoles (which often suffered from poor crimps, or poor insertions into their housings that may pass a pull test, but pop-out later).

I admit that it can be hard to get 12 gauge silicon-insulated wire into the WAGOs because of their flexibility and large diameter. For that wire, I recommend straightening the strands as much as possible, and then giving them only a tiny (< 1 turn) amount of twist before inserting.

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Anywhere you don’t regularly need to disconnect wires, let’s say a motor controller going to a motor where both are mounted on the same section of the robot, we use solder heat shrink of the appropriate gauge, along with this flux

The procedure for 10awg motor wires is: strip 5/16 or 8mm from each end, apply flux to the ends, insert into the heat shrink and center. Ensure strands lace together (this can be confirmed when the wires resist pulling apart under a very light tug) heat until solder has flowed and everything shrinks.

Whenever we need to disconnect regularly, like at the boundaries of mechanisms we use Anderson power poles as mentioned by other posters.






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More information about using ferrules on a PDP/PDH can be found here and in later posts in that thread.

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Well that is something I never noticed but could actually explain a lot

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Yeah this is more what I am looking for connections that are not meant to be constantly disconnected, thank you so much! Will take it into account.

I do love those heat-shrink+solder inline connectors. Sometimes I pre-solder or add additional low-temp solder to the joint before sliding the heat-shrink+ring over as I find the ring of solder doesn’t have an appropriate amount depending on the wire gauge.

This is for permanent in-line repairs (to be honest my team doesn’t do many of these - but we havent had major wiring failure the last 3yrs that may require this)

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In that case here’s a few more tips for success.

  1. Flux is really important for good solder flow. On smaller gauge wires the splice will pull apart and only break a few strands without flux, but with flux all the strands will fail before the join. On larger gauges, you should be able to pull very hard on the joint and it should stay solid as long as flux is used.

  2. The 10-12 gauge connectors kind of flow in two stages and it can look like the joint is done before it’s actually fully flowed. These two images are of the same joint and show both the half flowed state and what a good connection should look like.


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We’ve found that without flux usually all the solder ends up on one side of the connection so there isn’t enough to go around, but with flux it really spreads out and wicks in creating a much better connection.

You’d think they’d sell those shrink connectors pre-filled with flux if it makes such a difference!

Yeah - this is one situation where I like soldering, pull testing, then heat shrinking over the whole thing. Call me old fashioned.

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Something that may affect this - solder flows TOWARDS the heat source. So if one wire is getting hotter than another you will see uneven solder flow/distribution.

Additional Flux may be helping you in multiple ways - facilitating better heat flow into both wires, cleaning the wire surfaces for easier solder up-take, and perhaps reducing the flowing solder surface tension allowing better flow.

I havent had to use flux by paying close attention to heating both wires equally or focusing heat towards the side needing better flow - but I agree flux would make this process more reliable overall and easier for the less skilled/experienced! Do you have a link to some you like to use for OP?

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Re-reading your original post - your short term problem is your strip length. Use the guide on the side of the Wago 221 as @AdamF and @nuclearnerd mentioned and you shouldn’t experience pullout and require rework.

If you have other wiring needs there were plenty of solutions to problems you haven’t yet mentioned in the above convo!