IGUS energy chain modelling and printing

I'm planning to finalise the control cabinet for the Bantam lathe. This will involve hanging it on the tailstock end of the machine, using a couple of holes I've already tapped on the machine stand that line up with mounting holes on the cabinet.

To do this, I need to route the various control and motor cables in a vaguely professional manner. Previously I made a start on this but it was such a long time ago I've almost completely forgotten what I had in mind. What I do recall is messing about with some drag chain and at one point I even modelled it in Fusion as a live (movable) assembly. Nobody knows why I did that but perhaps I was just bored at the time.

Here's a previous post that describes that modelling work. And it seems I ordered some R48 series "energy cable" https://www.igus.co.uk/product/series-R48 For some reason I also got some smaller drag chain - what was all that about?

Here's the smaller stuff:

Looks the business - it's from IGUS (German), which is rather expensive but s "proper" industrial stuff.

On the face of it, this would be a sufficient length to accommodate the carriage movement. That's the only need for drag chain on this machine.

But there's one snag with this smaller stuff - it's open at the outside, which wouldn't be ideal when we are generating swarf and moving the drag chain back and forth endlessly.

Which explains why I (subsequently) bought the larger drag chain. This is the R48 model and the distinguishing feature of this version is that it is fully enclosed and is designed to withstand swarf - or at least allow reduced ingress. It has a removeable cap on the "outside" of the chain and the other 3 sides are closed, notwithstanding the need for articulation.

This shows how the covers are removed:

Like many industrial products these days, 3D CAD models are provided. But on closer inspection, it becomes clear that the components are not fully representative of the shipped products. Or to put it another way, if you were to print out those models, you'd have a hard time trying to remove the covers. 

I guess this is to stop (or slow down) the Chinese cloners. Why would you want to make your own parts when you already have the stuff in your hands? More on that later....

I've moved some of the furniture around so that I can get to the back of the machine - "let the dog see the rabbit" etc.

I need to remove the splash guard thing:

You can see the X axis servo motor here - the cables are just sitting in the swarf tray. The job got abandoned before it was finished.

With the rear guard removed, access is a bit more reasonable.

Here's the R48 drag chain:

This is one of the brackets that are required to secure each end of the chain:

That cover snaps on and off so that you can run the cables.

There's a shorter one that fits on the bracket itself

The 2 different versions are almost identical, apart from the curved extension which accommodates the articulation without allowing swarf ingress.

Those tabs on the bottom engage with these locking ramps on the main body.

Here's the problem - it's clear that The Stupid Fat Bloke removed ALL of the covers when we were originally messing with the drag chain. In the meantime, he obviously put them somewhere "safe". And now I have a length of drag chain without any of its covers. That is chocolate teapot territory. 

After spending the best part of an hour going through the storage in the main garage area (and finding nothing), I'm left with just this rack to save my bacon. Can it be in there please?

No chance. Another 20 minutes of my life has gone - and still no covers. So onto Plan B - 3D print some, so that the originals are then provoked into reappearing once they are complete.

So that requires me to model them up in Fusion. Luckily I have one solitary example tat The Stupid Fat Bloke overlooked. Let's get it done:

Print it out with 100% infill. Well that looks really shit:

But the fit is almost there.

It has a support raft but the issue is really that the layers show up when you have such a small angle to the table. 

The solution is fairly obvious - flip it on its end and use tree supports to avoid sagging of critical faces:

Like this:

That's better:

A couple of minor adjustments to "optimise" the fit and we have a solution. This is absolutely spot on - no slop or misalignment - clicks into place just like the genuine part:

I've ordered some black PA-CF filament (PA6 Nylon with carbon fibre) which should be here tomorrow. I may need to fiddle with the the settings, having changed from this grey (unfilled) PLA but otherwise, I should be able to print out a load of these.