[MrWild]

I've read about ground loops, ground points, daisy chain and star connections until I understand the way it is supposed to be with cable sheilding, but wonder where does the sheilding start? I've assumed right to the drive and between the drives and BOB also. The problem is that I see a lot of controls with really neat wiring jobs all bundled together without sheilding or twisted pairs. The bundled wire looms are quite impressive with the neatness and tidyness. My question reguards sheilded/twisted pair cabling inside the control box. Yes or No? Short runs are okay, Yes, or even though it is a neat job, it isn't the right way, No?

[LeeWay]

I built my first router using a Xylotex. Everything was inside of one big box. It was sort of spaghetti fashion, but turned out well. No shielding. No noise trouble.
My second design and build was another box of my own building. This time with Gecko's. Nothing but the gecko's, fans, and BOB was in this box. Everything else in in it's own cases. Computer, PS, plasma, THC...
I thought that I was having noise trouble but it turned out to be a couple of bent connection pins to my motors.
In an effort to eliminate noise, I did use some wire shields. It turns out I didn't need it, but I now consider it a good thing to have in place and will build my third controller the same way.
Designing and building your own is pretty much a crap shoot. You can hedge you bets by shielding everything you can. It is time and money well spent I think. I can tell you it is no fun trying to chase down a source of noise. Especially when you think you have done everything correctly.

[Al_The_Man]

I dont' like running any length of ribbon cable unless I have to, I usually transition it to terminals etc, but if you need to as I had to once, I picked this up on ebay for a 5ft run, I curled it and fed it through conduit between cabinets.
It has a plastic jacket, foil sheild and drain wire.
Al.