I am trying to figure out where the plastic chain guides/guards go. My kit only came with one. I think that it goes on the X axis. The Y axis has two Stepper motors. Don’t I need a cable chain/guide for both sides of the Y axis?
Only need one on the Y
I’m talking about the two rails that then router slides on. The long sides. There is a motor on each side that needs wires, so don’t I need a wire Guard on each side?
You only need one… route your wire for the second stepper thru the channel in the 20x40 extrusion that is behind the X axis
I used one chain guide for the Y axis on my OX (and also one for the X). I put the TinyG on the gantry, and the wires from the steppers run to the controller. My one chain guide contains power for the spindle, power for the controller, and USB to the controller.
If you mount your controller on a non-moving part, then you can still run the steppers across the gantry to the other side and down the cable chain to the controller. You could also use 2 cable chains. It really depends on how you want to wire things.
If you only have only have 1 cable chain, I’d opt to put in on the X axis. This is the axis that, in my short experience, is most likely to get caught on things as it moves. I have no cable chains, but I have heavy cable wrap and lots of zip ties on my X axis cabling, I still need to mount the ends to better clear everything.
I have my controller mounted on the X axis gantry, so I only have power, spindle wiring and USB coming from the Y-axis and gravity seems to do an OK job of keeping at out the way, though I plan to add cable chain in future.