Electrical supply and best practice

Community Laser Talk
1

Hi

I have a double socket on a wall (Type G plug’s, 3pin) like UK plugs, 230v 50Hz.
I read a great article yesterday from a German chap who built his own laser unit housing with all the bell’s and whistles. At the beginning he stressed the importance of safe and correct Precautions for personal health and tech wellbeing which got me thinking about machine location and whats buzzing in the vicinity.
I will use one or both sockets with suitable heavy, short as possible extention cables wired into ‘Surge protection’ multi socket block (like the ones used for computers and sensitive equipment).

I notice when selecting equipment the choice is Eu plug type, 220v. would the use of adapters and slightly different voltage make a difference.

I have to make adjustments when I’m roasting coffee when the local milking machines kick in and other heavy usage times. A friend once said we have dirty electricity in our area…but that was a while back and things might be better now.

Is it best to keep computer/laptops shielded from laser equip because of EMF and use short armoured usb cable (or better still…USB stick or ethernet cable) for file transfer and have the laser on its own supply line and fans, lights, air-asst on a seperate line.

And lastly, should the frame be grounded?

2

No, that doesn’t make a difference. The voltage range of 230V is defined as 230V±10%. So, 220V is completely inside the range. Actually, 220V does not exist anymore (in Europe, at least) but is compatible to the 230V net.

This has nothing to do with “dirty electricity”. Either your power lines or surges are not made to handle huge amounts of power going through. In Germany, most power lines are secured by 16A surges, as such, you can draw roughly 3600W from a single line. If you exceed this, the surge kicks in. This also depends on the diameter of the power lines that have been used in your building.

Cheap lasers usually don’t have great power profiles and therefore it makes sense to put them on separate lines or an EMI filter in between. But that’s more to protect the other devices from the lasers :slight_smile: Though, many people have problems with fragile communication connections to their lasers and securing the power lines and shielding the communication is a great way to circumvent this. There is no urgent need, but it’s definitely beneficial.

This also helped some people in curing communication issues. Personally, I never needed to do this, but as before, it won’t make things worse, but rather better :slight_smile:

3

Noted!, Thanks.