Prusa SwingArm - Open-Source release

Cable chain? Umbilical? Introducing the SwingArm!

We love to innovate and we constantly improve our existing printers. Even with the tight time constraints in the development of the CORE One, we reworked a vital part of the printer before release. I’m talking about the cable chain – it’s a flexible plastic chain that leads the cables and filament to the extruder. It’s pretty sleek and looks cool, however, it has a major disadvantage: everything is stuffed extremely tight inside it, to the point where it becomes impossible to replace the cables without removing the connectors. This didn’t sit right with us. After all, we want the printer to be extremely easy to assemble, run, and maintain.

So we came up with a different solution. We call it the SwingArm – it’s a short, hinged metal arm that guides the textile-sleeved cable bundle. The arm’s length and movement are carefully optimized to minimize strain on the cables. It’s a rather ingenious solution (pardon the little pat on our back) because it makes mounting or replacing the cables a breeze – you simply remove a couple of velcro fasteners and that’s it. It’s lightweight, space-efficient, and doesn’t cause any additional resistance. And we’re able to manufacture it locally! 🙂

Use it on your printer, it's open-source!

Whether you want to adapt it for your own projects or simply learn from it, we’re making the the files and documentation open-source, so feel free adapt it.

We’re excited to see how the community utilizes this design, whether it’s in custom printers or entirely new applications. If you end up using the SwingArm (or even improving it!), we’d love to see your work!