Originally Posted by
grinderdust
I'll post this here first, but it may move over to benchtop mills.
If you are here to bash environmentalism, or want to cut to the chase, skip the why paragraph.
The why:
I may have found the piece of land I've been looking for! One problem, It will cost a fortune to get utilities. No telephone landline, no problem, I can get cell reception on one corner of the property and can probably route the signal to the homesite somehow from there. TV? who cares? Well water, septic system, road, shelter? problem but I'll deal with that figuring I'll be able to sell my house eventually. What am I forgetting?.... hmmm...ELECTRICITY! Rats. There goes my dream. But wait! I really don't need that much. I am already accustomed to heating and making water hot with wood, drying my clothes in the wind or by the fire. Air conditioning is not needed in the shade of the forest. Lighting has some efficient options these days. Refrigeration is possible with propane or even heat exchanged from elsewhere. It would seem that my little workers in the garage present the biggest technological hurdle to living out my dream. I'm thinking maybe, just maybe I can find a way to run my cnc machines off the grid. I will definitely need to maximize efficiency in order to keep size of the power system down to something I can afford. This would be a twofold endeavor. 1: Running the spindle motor as efficiently as possible. 2: running the cnc components as efficiently as possible.
The what:
I have a stock Emco F1 cnc, a Rong fu round column with gecko's and servo's, and a South bend 9" lathe.The lathe is not cnc but is just as important to my shop. I wish to use as much D.C. electricity from batteries as I can to power these machines and have many questions.
The how:
I would like to know if it is possible to do away with the ac power supply in my gecko housing, and use dc current from batterys to power my drivers and motors. How difficult would it be to go about regulating this sort of thing? I am good with alot of things, but I need help with electricity when it gets into new territory. Please assume for now that the battery bank is limitless, but some fluctuation is normal,comes in 6 volt + or - increments, and the mill and servos are average performance for a round column. I'll open the geckobox up and "remember" the specific info soon. Would steppers be significantly better on power demand? I need basically the same info on the F1 but I'm considering a conversion to modern electronics. I still like this machine in it's stock form though and I might a little for now by just ditching the power suppy and getting an lcd to work in place of ye oldeskool televiewscreen.
The 2HP monster that came attached to my rong fu is way overkill for this mill , especially for most of the work I do. I did some steel hogging on this mill back in it's manual days and I've succeded In breaking the stock vise (first day), causing the head to to slip on the column even with grade 8 pinch bolts, ridgid tapping, slipping belts, climb milling... That motor never even slowed down a bit. By the way don't do any of those things unless you live dangerously. Even then I hope you know what you're doing so you don't make . Anyways I'll have a 2HP motor for sale soon.
What is the most efficient motor to run this machine? Variable speed would be nice. Battery supplied dc would be handy. Figure I'll 1 horsepower or a little less, and no rigid tapping. I can reduce the chipload a bit if the HP isn't enough. A modest increase in spindle rpm would be desirable(safe limit?). Eliminating one or all belts would improve many factors. Just for comparison,what type of motor is best overall for price vs. performance. I also need the same rundown for the lathe, which requires 1/2 hp, and the emco mill. I'm not sure of the power requirements for the F1 and I think it may have a dc spindle already. I know that it has brushes.
I'll leave the who, when and where to the imagination. It's better that way.
If you made it this far into my mad science novel you are truly a patient listener. If you have any Ideas that might help, you will also be regarded by me as a genius.