I am about to embark on the K40 to Smoothie upgrade. At the same time I’ve rebuilt the bed size inside the case to get me approx. 270x570mm space. I purchased this power supply from Light Object because my original K40 supply flamed up and died. The way I’m understanding the connections on this supply lead me to believe that I need to get a secondary 24v switching power supply for the Azteeg X5 I’ve got coming. Is that a correct assumption?
http://www.lightobject.com/20W45W-PWM-CO2-Laser-Power-Supply-AC110V-P71.aspx
The less strain you put on the psu the better. The 24v power is for the stepper motors. I believe @Scott_Marshall and @donkjr would both agree that you will see more longevity with your psu if you use an auxiliary psu to drive the stepper motors.
Thank you for your reply, Alex!
@donkjr might be interested in your dead power supply if you still have it
Indeed I do. If he wants it it’s all his.
@K1111 Sweet, how do I get it, where do you live?
@donkjr I live in East Texas. If you’re not worried about speed I can just send it via the cheapest shipping method possible.
@Alex_Krause I used an external 24 supply to power my smoothie cause I just don’t trust a HV supply whose 24V powers my controller. I am using the 24V from the LPS for my lift table and the 5V for incidentals like the LED pointer.
I ordered a 24V 5A power supply, figuring that the drivers should only pull 2A max, so it should be enough.
How did you get that bed size? Move the PSUs etc to outside?
@Steve_Brown Yep. And once things are wired up, my fist job will be to cut a control box with the new bed size.
@K1111 Whoops I just noticed the post ref. sending the PS :(.
Contact me on don_kleinschnitz@hotmail.com for an address please, don’t care about how long it takes :).
BTW I just noticed the specs on the LPS DC capacity: 24V @1 amp, 5V @1 amp. Not much to drive steppers!
im using separate psu for smoothie and drives, laser psu is only for laser tube
I didn’t want to start a new post, so I’m replying to two of my posts with this: I noticed some interesting behavior tonight. My meter kept jumping, and the pot would inconsistently adjust the current. I zeroed out my Smoothie by mistake, and so I hit the reset button on my X5, and I noticed the meter jumped by 5mA when I did! I tried it twice and that happened. Is this electrical interference or something else?
When you say it kept jumping is this during a job or static. I doubt its noise unless you have a grounding problem. I would try unplugging the controls to the LPS one at a time and do the reset and see what control is causing it. I have heard of others getting a control signal from the smoothie on reset.
@donkjr The pot was being finicky when I was trying to set the current (it was being very sensitive, as in just barely turning the knob to move 5mA, and then it would sort of jump 1-2mA). I ran my job twice. The first time I stopped getting current in the middle of the job, and during that job it jumped from 10mA down to 5ish, then nothing. I turned everything off, checked my connections, then ran it again.
Then the jumping happened when I ran it again, it would jump 2-3mA. I did notice that my laser red wire was sort of haphazardly laying on top of part of the controller, so I moved it and added a silicone tube over the entire length. Everything’s kind of a mess right now since I’ve not yet built a box. As for grounding, I did feel a slight tingle at one point when the job was running. I double checked my grounding lug and it is tight. I’ve got that secondary grounding post running to a copper pipe under the sink.
As for unplugging things, should I start with the things connected to the smoothie? I do have four grounds running into a separate terminal block that I then tied together and ran one line into the PSU because those tiny blocks don’t have room for more than one or two wires. I wonder if my issue may be there?
@donkjr also, to add to the above, I noticed in another post that it’s recommended to tie the level shifter to the ground on the board, but not the ground on the PSU as well, which I have done. Maybe another issue?
what setup (wiring ) did you use for connecting the smoothie to the LPS?
@donkjr Hopefully this isn’t a double post, but I can’t see my other reply. I have this set up based on the blue box guide on the smoothie website. I have a different PSU though so I had to make some modifications.
IN on PSU (LightObject says this is their PWM) to PWM on shifter
PWM on shifter to 2.4 on board
5v on PSU to 5V on shifter
3.3v on shifter to 3.3 v on board
Ground to both sides of shifter
Light Object did tell me that their 5V is analog and that the shifter is digital, so I don’t need it, but then they cautioned me that it could fry my board, so I kept the shifter.