[kolias]

For my next CNC control panel I would like to use a steel panel along with DIN rails and terminals

Does anyone knows where I can get these items retail in Canada, preferably in Montreal?

[RMHCNC]

For my next CNC control panel I would like to use a steel panel along with DIN rails and terminals

Does anyone knows where I can get these items retail in Canada, preferably in Montreal?

Greybar electric
Westburn electric
Torbram electric

Just 3 off the top of my head

[Al_The_Man]

The main manuf. of enclosures is Hammond or Hoffman, but they can get expensive, If you are patient, you can often pick up a deal on ebay, I have obtained some good deals C/W disconnect, Panduct, DIN mounted Terminals and other goodies for way less than trade price.
Al.

[kolias]

Thank you both, Westburn seems a good choice, they sell retail (looks like) and have an office not far from my place. But I will also search eBay

Now for the funny part; I would like to use DIN rail / terminals but I never used them and don’t really know what they do and how you make the connections. From another member here I got the attached picture and would like to make something similar.

So with the DIN terminals I guess instead of using wire nuts to make a splice you bring your wiring to the DIN terminal and the end of your wire snaps into the terminal?

And how about if you have one feed (black / white of 120VAC) and you want to feed 3 other points. How that will work with the DIN terminals?

And can you mix 120VAC and VDC on the same Rail?

I will assume the DIN rails / Terminals must be of the same kind (manufacturer) in order to be able to snap each terminal to the rail or they all fit?

[Al_The_Man]

DIN rail is a just a quick Standard method of mounting various electrical components, even transformers come now with DIN mount.
Some others are relays. contactors, Power supplies, PLC's etc.
You need to observe that same wiring practices that are used in screw/panel mount components.
Al.

[RMHCNC]

Al has it spot on my friend, in the end a nice clean wiring job helps when it comes to trouble shooting issues or replacing/upgrading
Your deff on the right track

[hollisin]

Thank you both, Westburn seems a good choice, they sell retail (looks like) and have an office not far from my place. But I will also search eBay

Now for the funny part; I would like to use DIN rail / terminals but I never used them and don’t really know what they do and how you make the connections. From another member here I got the attached picture and would like to make something similar.

So with the DIN terminals I guess instead of using wire nuts to make a splice you bring your wiring to the DIN terminal and the end of your wire snaps into the terminal?

And how about if you have one feed (black / white of 120VAC) and you want to feed 3 other points. How that will work with the DIN terminals?

And can you mix 120VAC and VDC on the same Rail?

I will assume the DIN rails / Terminals must be of the same kind (manufacturer) in order to be able to snap each terminal to the rail or they all fit?

kolias who is the member you got the picture from? I would like to ask him about the connectors in the top of the cabinet and the mother board.

Thanks
Jack

[kolias]

The thread is here http://www.cnczone.com/forums/cnc_wo...r_build-3.html
but notice the date, is very old and dont think you will get a reply

[Al_The_Man]

BTW, one minor observation, in the case of power supplies and any heat producing items, it is customary to mount them at the top of the cabinet to avoid any affect on items above them.
Al.

[mmoe]

Another place to look for various electrical supplies is some of the HVAC suppliers. They often carry DIN rail and I've found that it can often be cheaper there than at industrial control suppliers. Many of the products seem to straddle the line between HVAC and industrial controls, so it's worth a look if you've got an HVAC supplier nearby. I bought my DIN rail (aluminum extrusion style) for about $1.50/3foot stick at an HVAC supply, which was less than I've found it anywhere else. Some also carry appropriate DIN mount relays and power supplies.

[kolias]

Finally I found a place to purchase what I need. He is a rep of Guillevin.com and he supplies electrical contractors in a village not far from here. Ha actually had DIN rail and terminals and it was the 1st time I saw these items. Also he can order items for me if he doesn't have them and price looks reasonable

[kolias]

To avoid using wiring nuts in a control panel is there another alternative besides DIN rail terminals?

[Al_The_Man]

There is direct panel mount, but essentially the same thing? Is there some thing against screw terminals?
Al.

[mmoe]

To avoid using wiring nuts in a control panel is there another alternative besides DIN rail terminals?

Other than wiring it directly as Al suggests, I doubt there is anything more economical that serves the same purpose. The DIN rail terminals I use cost about $0.40 each (made by "Connectwell", see link at bottom), so $20-$25 will go a long ways for most smaller applications. Even in a large industrial application, you might spend $100 on the terminals (about 250 of them), but the cost of the rest of the machine would be so great that it wouldn't be much of a factor as a percentage of the whole machine. While they are essentially a more expensive wire nut in function, they also provide quick access to the circuits for diagnosing problems later as well as an easy way to split signals or power supplies (by connecting two wires to the same terminal or daisy-chaining power/ground across several terminals to supply larger numbers of wires), so for the little extra they cost you get a lot of convenience, IMHO.

As with most things, buying in larger quantities will usually get you better pricing, but with the Connectwell products, they come in 50 piece boxes, so it's just a little over $20 for the terminals. You also need the endcaps for the terminals (since on face is open, you just need one at the end of each row of terminals) and you'll need rail clamps, which go at the ends of terminals or any other DIN mounted components to keep them from moving side to side. Between those three parts, I think you'll spend less than $50 on 50 count boxes of all three components.

CTS4UN : 4 sq.mm Standard Feed Through Terminal Blocks

CA702

EP2.5/4UN : End Plate

And these are for linking (shorting) adjacent terminals for things like power supply signals that may go to many different components:
CA722/2

[kolias]

Hey Al, what is screw terminals? Maybe as the attached picture?

mmoe that is pretty good what your saying and I love the pricing; but the place I found for the DIN terminals he is charging $2.50 / terminal and although right now I don’t know how many I need I assume I will need at least 20 + the end plates + the rails so we are talking about $100 easy and possibly more. I'm not in USA and that’s why I always have problem sourcing electrical components.

This "Connectwell" seems a good place but in India? Since you have ordered from them I don’t mind to give them a try + I don’t mind to spend $20 to get 50 terminals.

Did you order directly from India?

[Al_The_Man]

Yes that's what I meant, but I usually go to ebay for quantities of DIN rail mount.
Search Weidmuller, Phoenix Contact, Allen-Bradly, Entrelec, Conta-Clip for just a few.
Al.

[kolias]

Thank you Al, so I got this straight and looks like the screw terminals are a much better alternative than wire nuts but if I could understand the DIN rail system I would rather go for it, looks like the "Cadillac" of connections, lol

On eBay I get many options on the DIN system and since I don’t know the options I hesitate to place an order. Since my panel will have 120VAC and 10-40VDC wiring I wonder what I have to order:

DIN rails come in 35mm, 32mm or 15mm. What is the difference between them?
Slotted or unslotted rails? What is the difference?
Do I need feed through terminals? What are the options?

What is the difference between End Clamps and End Plates; I know what End Plate is for but do I need one End Plate for each Terminal or if they are stuck together I only need 1 at each end?

I also know what the End Clamps are for but how many do I need? One for each end on a rail?

Pre assembled shorting pins; insulated or not? 2, 3, 4, or 10 poles?

And what about the wire gauge I will connect to each terminal? How do you identify this?

[Al_The_Man]

There are about 3 versions of DIN rail, the most popular appears to be the shallow U trough 35mm wide.
I believe slotted refers to some already have pre-drilled slots for mounting, saves drilling?
End plates are for covering the last exposed terminal, end clamps are to clamp the whole strip of terminals from moving around, you need one each end.
Shorting bars are good for linking commons it saves wire jumpers.
I usually get 10's and cut them as necessary.
The wire gauge can usually be had from the Manuf sites under the listed part No.
I use the 18-14g size mainly.
Al.

[mmoe]

Hey Al, what is screw terminals? Maybe as the attached picture?

mmoe that is pretty good what your saying and I love the pricing; but the place I found for the DIN terminals he is charging $2.50 / terminal and although right now I don’t know how many I need I assume I will need at least 20 + the end plates + the rails so we are talking about $100 easy and possibly more. I'm not in USA and that’s why I always have problem sourcing electrical components.

This "Connectwell" seems a good place but in India? Since you have ordered from them I don’t mind to give them a try + I don’t mind to spend $20 to get 50 terminals.

Did you order directly from India?

I buy the Connectwell products locally. I find Ebay to be quite expensive compared to local industrial control suppliers, but I suppose that depends on what suppliers you have locally. With Seattle being very heavily influenced by production of Boeing aircraft, there are lots of suppliers of products for aerospace manufacturing and lots of suppliers of otherwise difficult to find materials, so I'm fortunate in that regard. If you like, I would be willing to pick up a package of terminals (50), and then throw in a couple endcaps and clamps. I could get you the price for all the parts, plus shipping and it would just be what it actually costs me. Plus, since I have a lot of the endcaps and clamps, you wouldn't need to buy a box of each of those, which would also save you some money. Usually you only need 2 or 3 endcaps, basically one per row of terminals and with 50 total terminals I doubt you'd have more than 3 rows. The endcaps are about $0.10 each if memory serves. For clamps, you probably need around 10, though I can't remember what the price on those was. I'd expect they were in the $0.25-0.40 range as they are essentially similar to the terminals in size and complexity. I do know for absolute certain that the pricing on the terminals themselves is $0.40 each as I just bought another 50pc. box last week.

I also could supply the DIN rail to you, which I get locally for somewhere around $1.50 each for a 3 foot length of slotted extruded aluminum (35mm wide, which is pretty much the most common size). The slotted is more convenient to mount than the unslotted, so it would be my recommendation. I just use self tapping sheet metal screws to mount the rails to the interior of the cabinet.

The only part of wiring that is expensive and I've never really found an inexpensive solution to (other than the wire itself), is the wire ducting. This is the best pricing I've found so far, but I've not used their product yet. I usually use 2"x2" wire duct, and when I buy it locally it costs around $25 per 6 foot length (edit: now that I look back, it was $25 for the channel, and another $15 for the cap, so $40 for the complete 6 foot wire duct!), but it is the Panduit brand which is probably a little tougher than the generics. Still, I will probably eventually try a case from these guys as it comes to around $8 per 6 foot length if you bought a case. If you only need one 6 foot length, you'd probably be best off buying locally since shipping would make it expensive. If you need three 6 foot lengths, then it would probably save money to buy from these guys (still depending on shipping):

ElectriDuct® Open Slot Wire Duct | Network Wiring Ducts

If you want me to send the other parts (DIN rail, terminals, endcaps and clamps), let me know and I'll find out what it will cost including shipping. I'd estimate that you'd get 50 terminals, 3 endcaps, 10 clamps along with two 3 foot DIN rails for around $50 including shipping so long as it's just whatever the most economical shipping available (probably standard USPS). If you know the maximum length you need a DIN rail to be so they can be cut down, that might help for shipping as well as far as putting it all in a box goes.

[xjdubber]

I build panels quite a lot, my favorite enclosures by far are rittal. And as far as terminals I really like the weidmuller sak series. Slotted din rail is easier to use just have to mark of where you want to mount and use some 8-32 x1/4 machine screws to mount. if you use 1/4" they are almost flush with the back of a the backpan.