Hi guys. New to the form and first time plasma table builder…
Having a problem with the plasma cutter causing the controller to poop itself. I’ve shielded the controller with foil tape. Have ferrite filters on the trigger wire from the relay and on the USB cable, I’ve even tried to isolate the power supply to work off of my camping trailers solar system but all still the same. Any thoughts would be great.
Also have an issue with the hard limits but would like to sort out the plasma cutter first.
How far apart are the wall outlets for the plasma cutter and the control board?
It seems that even small exhaust fans and compressors can inject noise through the typical control board ‘brick’ power supply and crash the controller. I haven’t put an oscilloscope on it yet to verify but here’s a quick test.
Grab a long extension cord, plug the control board brick into one end, and plug the other end into a wall outlet far from the plasma cutter. This can attenuate the EM noise from the plasma cutter and reduce the Noise injected into the power supply.
I’ve had the controller plugged into my camper solar system and had the same results Also just tried the car battery test as well to eliminate the brick with no luck. I’ve everything earthed as well.
Was heading out the door when I took that pic and had it on a battery to test. Everything is fine with the plasma cutter is off but when triggered it’s like the controller reboots. Looking into the ssr’s. Might be just the sudden hit with power from the trigger wire that’s pushing the em burst.
Is the ground of the plasma table in anyway connected to grounds on anything electronic? It could be motors, end stop switches, pcbs etc! The table mesh bed and the plasma unit should be well earthed. As previously mentioned the plasma will be very electrically noisy and dumping a lot of it probably to earth. If you could move the electronics as far away as possible and cover all motor and end stop cables with a screen like a foil and maybe insulate the motor mounts and shafts. Tricky
Going to try changing the plug on the plasma as it’s only on a 2 pin eu plug and pick up a SSR relay. Motors are mounted to polycarbonate parts. Have the controller mounted to a piece of MDF and the pox it’s in is foil taped.
I can also assume it moves the head and works until it needs plasma?
Make sure of what you are switching with the ssr. These usually switch during a zero voltage level. If you are switching dc, it won’t switch to an open state.
I’m just suggesting you need to know what you are switching to use one of the ssr modules.
