Hello, I just got my Elite Journeyman and still in the process of setting it up. Just waiting for the 220v spindle to come in from PWNCNC which probably won’t be till next month.
What I want to know is if I can switch the power supply in the Elite to 220v. I know it uses a Meanwell psu (good brand, I have a few on my 3d printers). So I know it can handle 220v. But I’m wondering if 220v is safe for the relay board inside the box with it. I won’t be using the router output and I’d still use 110v for the vacuum power and output.
The reason is because I’m getting my hands on a 6kVA 220v battery backup my work is getting rid of (We moving offices and starting all the IT rooms from scratch with all new equipment). Plenty of capacity to handle this machine. I just wouldn’t want to use a separate 110v UPS just for the controller if it’s able to run on 220v.
You can take the US 110 V Elite power supply box and change the internal input voltage of the Meanwell LRS-350 to 220 V. All DC output of the Meanwell will not be affected (relays, stepper motor power, supply for Masso G3 controller). But then you would power the supply box with your 240 V circuit/socket. That would lead to the situation that the left, router NEMA 5 socket on the Elite supply box would deliver 220 V. You would need a 220 V router, the international Makita RT0702C then. But it has a CEE 7/7 plug or a BS 1363 (Type G) plug. I also don’t think the safety regulations allow 220 V to be put on a NEMA 5 outlet, as they are only available in 120 V household power in North America. You would have to exchange the NEMA 5 socket on the Elite power supply box by one of these 220 V sockets.
Only the “vacuum” socket has its own input and could remain at 110 V.
So the more simple alternative would be to wire the router relay (switched side of the relay) internally so that it is fed by the vacuum power input, then it would remain at 110 V.
Image: From left to right: red rectangle: Step-down converter for 36 V to 24 V for the stepper motors, DC power supply for Masso G3 Touch controller, yellow rectangle: board’s 36 V input from Meanwell DC output, vacuum relay, router relay, power pushbutton. lower row: DC connectors with fuses for supplying five stepper motors.
but you don’t need to switch the Elite power supply box to 220 V to run a 220 V spindle, you know that? As Onefinity did not forget to emphasize, the “router” relay is only for a router! A spindle, that is forcibly driven by a VFD, MUST NOT be switched on or off by interrupting the power to the VFD! Neither the VFD supply input, nor the VFD to spindle connection is allowed to be interrupted by a switch or relay while the spindle runs! It may destroy both the spindle and the VFD. The only way to stop and start a spindle is with the VFD’s RUN and STOP commands. These can either be given on the VFDs front keyboard, or by g-code commands by the CNC controller.
I know that you probably already know all this, because you explained that your reason to go to 220 V for the Elite Controller is the UPS you can get (6 kW, really cool by the way). But I always write for all who might find this with the search function in the future, with their case being slightly different
Yes, you are correct, I know almost all this. But I understand your reasoning for explaining it all to others that might not know or have other reasons.
The only unknown was in the board that comes in the power supply that has the relays on it and powers the steppers. Since the router relay would have 220v coming in instead of 110v, I wasn’t sure if those were rated to handle that voltage or if the international version used a different version. But I guess I could just unplug that side internally and not worry about it. But I hope the power switch remains suitable.
I would not be using the router output because the VFD will have it’s own power supply. The VFD comes with an L6-20p cord and the UPS I’m getting my hands on, has 2x L6-20R and 2x L6-30R receptacles. I haven’t gotten the Spindle/VFD in yet, so I’m hoping PWNCNC uses a C19 receptacle on it which is rated for 20amp.
This is the UPS I’m getting my hands on. It’s an older unit, but these APC’s are built like tanks. And I know it works perfectly cause I’m the one that maintains the server room where it’s been home to for the past 6yrs. We had another 5kVA unit that sat next to it, but another friend in the company already snagged it to use in another machine shop.
Are you sure that it’s not a dual output battery backup? Often the 240v ones are. I don’t have an elite machine but I supplied everything going to my Journeyman with 240v. For 120v I just used one leg and the neutral.
As for using a battery backup. I suspect that it’ll give you enough time to stop it but not enough time to finish running a project if the power goes out. Most likely you’ll have about an hour (the controller, spindle/vfd, dust collection, etc) depending on how much capacity the battery now has.
It would be nice to had the battery backup send a signal to the controller to pause in case it kicks in. It’s rare for the power to go out around here now that the power company has cut back the branches so I never looked into it. I did add a stepper with a brake on the Z axis so if the power does go out it’s not going to plunge into my work. I think if I had an elite machine I would upgrade to the servo with a brake for peace of mind.
Yes, I think so, because the Meanwell is made for the same DC 36 V output, indepently if 110 V or 220 V is selected. The only thing to worry about is where the AC input power is used directly, e.g. for router socket.
When a pushbutton is used (and not a rocker switch), it is never connected to the AC wires directly, but to a low-voltage DC circuit. So I don’t think it will be impacted. Also I assume it is a switch on secondary side, so just as on the buildbotics-derived Onefinity Original X-35/X-50/PRO CNC controller, you don’t switch the AC input off, but the DC side. The Meanwell LRS-350 always stays connected to the AC line.
Yes, but if you have a good emergency circuit, it will make sure that all the emergency stopping procedures (CNC controller motion stop, spindle/VFD stop) will finish correctly. Also UPSes have a serial communication interface that can signal how many minutes and seconds remain. With a daemon like nut, the computer is shut down at a certain minutes remaining time, not earlier. This would mean you could let the machine run further in its g-code program and stop it at a favorable point in program (i.e. on a tool change).
I use nut on all my computers, and a CNC controller is a computer. Good if your computer’s or your CNC controller’s operating system is free and open-source so you can install nut by doing:
Yeah, The battery backup uses an L6-20 and L6-30 plugs (3-conductor), which don’t have neutrals. To get 110v, the plugs would need a 4-conductor type plugs, 2x hots, 1 neutral, 1 ground.
That actually might be possible. I’m fairly sure some NMC cards have signal outputs to tell devices to shut down. The UPS I’m getting does have an NMC with I/O ports on it. I’ll have to research into it, but it might be possible to wire the I/O ports to a Masso controller input to receive a signal to tell it to safely shut down.
Looking at the Masso inputs, you can assign one to a stop command. So it might not be too difficult.
Edit: Looking in to it. I can use this relay module AP9810 and attach to the I/O port on the NMC. The relay can be used like a pushbutton and wired into the Masso controller.
So yes, I believe it is quite doable for the UPS to tell the Masso controller to stop.
I just looked closer at the switch and it is wired on the AC side, not the DC side. So I definitely need to account for it receiving a 220v AC signal. I’m sure the actual switch component would be fine, but it does have an LED in it and I need to see if it’s rated for that much voltage. Looking online, there are quite a few of these kinds of switches that support 100-240v just fine. I just need to know if this switch is one of them.
If it’s not a double pole switch it would need to be replaced as a single pole would only disconnect one of the two ungrounded “hot” conductors. Same with relays, fuses and anything else connected to line side power that only interrupts the ungrounded conductor and not the grounded “neutral” conductor.
UPS manufacturers sell 240/208v to 120v transformers for this specific purpose, I would suggest that route and not attempting to rewire the existing Onefinity hardware.
Aiph5u
(Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))
11
Black wire comes in from the AC socket > Into the power switch > then out to the AC input of the Meanwell
A white wire comes from the AC Socket to the Meanwell AC side then a white jumper connects this side to the switch, most likely for the LED to get power.
I also looked closer at the switch. Had to find my magnifying glass, but found the specs on it and it’s rated to 240v. So I think the switch will be okay one way or the other.
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Aiph5u
(Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))
13
I agree.
By the way, did you ever think that if you want to run the Elite/Masso controller at 220 V, that it would be simpler to use the international version? Here to be seen on the right:
Very interesting thread. I feel like I wasn’t on my game to not think about this from the start.
With all things being equal, it seems like 240v is the way to go. I also have a split phase panel going in next to the 1F that is on the protected load side of a Sol-Ark 15K. Seems like one thing to have the router be able to recover from power loss, but much better to never lose power at all.
Are there any disadvantages to running with the international PS on split-phase 240 from the start?
Yes, as neither version is designed to operate with 2 ungrounded ‘hot’ conductors as you would with split phase power in the US. The fuses and internal switching assumes one ungrounded ‘hot’ conductor for operation.
Well, that’s if you run straight from the breaker.
But the thing about my situation is the UPS I’m getting is a double conversion. So the wall outlet is simply charging the batteries and converted to DC and the output side is ran from an inverter supplying a constant voltage. I can even adjust the output separately from the input. Like if I had 240v input, I can set the UPS to 208 or 220v output. Because of that decoupling, I don’t believe the output runs as a double-hot like from the breaker.
And I actually decided to go with the “other” UPS I have available. SRT5KRMXLT. It’s newer, a little bit less kVA, but higher kW. Still more than enough capacity to run the entire machine for a while.
And it was previously mentioned of the option to use an step-down transformer and I did find this one that pairs with that UPS SRT5KRMTF. While I’m getting UPS for free, I would have to buy the inverter, which isn’t cheap (but only paying $700 for a roughly $7,500 backup unit is pretty good deal). But I could run the 110v only devices off that. Like my Shop-Vac and Coolant system.
And I could wire in a AP9810 and set it to something like the “Door Switch” input so when tripped, it signals the machine to halt, but once the error is cleared and it returns to normal, the machine will automatically resume. Since the spindle and vacuum draw the most power, if they can be stopped during the power outage, that battery could last quite a long time.
