[DaleW]

Ben Fleming is a pioneering figure in the homebuilt EDM world, chances are if you delved into the EDM world you looked at his schematics and ordered his board (or made your own board) and assembled your own sinker machine.

For those of you familiar with this original project I am looking for someone who currently has one and uses it to test a new control/driver board.

His schematic is/was pretty much available everywhere on the internet and was about the only one I could find that worked.

I liked the design so much that I have set out to make it a more appealing design and a little more flexible in motor options.

I've reworked the motor driver section, the original design supported 0.6A/1.0A (Cont/Peak) with no voltage flexibility and the updated design supports up to 5A/7.5A from 5V-24V.

Don't worry, I'm not stealing Ben's work, I am in contact with him and just sent him one of the boards along with a toroidal transformer to replace the E-core.

I'm still tweeking the design and adding features like a couple of 12V fan connectors and I've designed a 20 segment LED bar meter to replace the old school analog meter

The new design supports motors up to 12V@3.5A using the onboard power supply and with a separate motor power supply it can support motors up to 24V@10A (40V@10A if you replace a capacitor).

The final release board will give Ben Fleming credit, after all, it's based on his work and I'm just bringing into this century.

I see a lot of people use de-ionized water as a dielectric fluid but, I have been using diesel fuel for years and filter it through a couple of large cummings diesel engine oil filters keeping the fluid as clean as can be and don't have to worry too much about evaporation.

Once I have a couple of people to test the new board in their rig it is my intention to offer them for sale fully assembled and ready to go out of the box because I know what it's like to find suitable substitution parts for those that have been discontinued.

If you are interested in testing the board PM me and we can go from there.

-- Dale