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SERVO LEAD WIRE PROTECTION
 for the ROBONVA-1

The insulation on the servo leads is a bit "soft". It's a fact, whenever you have two surfaces moving against the each other (smooth or not), you have friction to accompany it. We all know this, but sometimes it takes a bad turn of events to remind us how much of an enemy friction can be.
After reading a post by Almer Frades on robosavvy's forum, I took a look at the condition of my servo wires to ensure they've been holding up well. To my astonishment, I found a couple of new problem areas that need addressed.
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Soon after building my RN-1, I quickly noticed the hip area as having a potential friction problem. Although most of the brackets are relatively smooth, there are some very sharp ones too. And, there's always the threat of pinching. To help protect my hip leads, I used a thin-wall split lume shielding and a couple of extra wire ties.
The picture (below) shows the split lume, and points out a couple of areas I just noticed - thanks to Almer's post. My personal beef is not so much in the arms, but in the legs.

I have a couple of options to take into consideration here. The split lume is nice, but isn't very efficient in short lengths as it tends to crease with any acute bend. I have heat-shrink tubing in various diameters, but once it cools, looses its placidity. Then there's this stuff...

I'm not sure if this is its official name, but we call it "snake-skin shielding". It's flexible when kept loose, can handle a multitude of diameters, and can easily slide over the servo connector.

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Using a combination of all three materials can give the versatility to offer protection and maintain efficiently operating joints.

I placed heat shrink tubing around the section of each lead closest to the servo case. Split lume in the hip areas. And snake-skin around the ankle and foot leads. I chose to keep the knee leads as is. The joint covers far too great of a range for such a short distance, that anything I put there seemed to be more of a hindrance than anything. So, I placed wire-ties around the insulation and turned the "knobby ends" in toward the brackets to help keep the leads from touching the surface.

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