Fully Parametric Cable Chain

Fully Parametric Cable Chain

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As I did not find a cable chain suiting my needs, I decided to make my own.

I was looking for a fully parametric cable chain, capable of output in CSG.
The Cable Chains I found here were mostly only .stl Surfaces.

Also I wanted to be able to build not only a single Chainlink, but a complete cable chain.
Here you can specify a vector consisting of the angles towards the previous chain links.

In future the will be an additional option to differing link types, to restrict angular movement of the chain.

The Cable Chain is generated though a nested vector.
There is a tupel consisting of the chain link type (at the moment there are only type 1: restricted to 45° movement and type 2: +-45° movement, type 3 generates a nice looking closed but mechanically not necessarily reasonable closed chain, type 4 onwards is just the same as type 3) and the angle of this link towards the previous. e.g. [1,30] is a link with a 30° angle.

These tupels are embedded in a vector. The vector:

ChainDef = [[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,30],[1,30],[1,30],[1,30],[1,30],[1,30],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0]];

defines the example cable chain shown as screenshot.

The vector:

ChainDef = [[1,0],[1,5],[1,15],[1,15],[1,20],[1,20],[1,20],[1,20],[1,15],[1,15],[1,10],[1,10],[1,10],[1,10],[1,10],[1,10],[1,7],[1,6],[1,5],[1,5],[1,5],[1,5],[1,5],[1,5],[1,4],[1,4],[1,4],[1,4],[1,3],[1,3],[1,0],[1,0]];

defines the version I use in my 3D…

3d printer3D Printer Partscable chaincable managementcustomizeropenscadparametric

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