Power failure/flicker best practices?
- djdelorie
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07 Mar 2025 22:39 #323471
by djdelorie
Power failure/flicker best practices? was created by djdelorie
Other than sourcing a 240v/50a UPS, what should I be doing if I'm using my CNC in an environment prone to power flickers? We had a short outage this morning due to high winds, and often have sub-second "flickers", and I'm worried about running long jobs.
Note: my system was built with forum advice, where a 24v power supply feeds contactors for the motor and spindle power, with estops on the positive side and software-controlled relays on the negative side. I don't know how long each of the supplies will last without power, but I assume that no matter what the specific value is, eventually there will be outages both shorter than and longer than that
I do have a UPS on the PC running linuxcnc, but not on the power that runs the Mesa 7i76E board. I figure worst case, the PC will stop and tell me the line number it was on before all hell broke loose
So is there anything I can do or change to make dealing with such power flickers/outages less stressful?
(more info: the motors are servos but the drivers are step/dir, and the spindle has its own vfd. The setup has a single power cord with internal breakers for each power supply)
Note: my system was built with forum advice, where a 24v power supply feeds contactors for the motor and spindle power, with estops on the positive side and software-controlled relays on the negative side. I don't know how long each of the supplies will last without power, but I assume that no matter what the specific value is, eventually there will be outages both shorter than and longer than that

I do have a UPS on the PC running linuxcnc, but not on the power that runs the Mesa 7i76E board. I figure worst case, the PC will stop and tell me the line number it was on before all hell broke loose

So is there anything I can do or change to make dealing with such power flickers/outages less stressful?
(more info: the motors are servos but the drivers are step/dir, and the spindle has its own vfd. The setup has a single power cord with internal breakers for each power supply)
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- andypugh
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08 Mar 2025 00:30 #323477
by andypugh
Replied by andypugh on topic Power failure/flicker best practices?
Maybe you could power the 7i76E from the UPS too? The spindle VFD can probably handle a sub-second power interruption on the bus capacitors.
The servos may stall, but there is some chance that they might recover position if the encoders remain powered. And if not, then you will get an f-error report, and still have a live system to recover with.
The servos may stall, but there is some chance that they might recover position if the encoders remain powered. And if not, then you will get an f-error report, and still have a live system to recover with.
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- djdelorie
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08 Mar 2025 00:49 #323479
by djdelorie
Replied by djdelorie on topic Power failure/flicker best practices?
The 7i76E is in (or eventually will be) the same enclosure (and same power cord) as everything else, except the PC, which is elsewhere. Putting just it (24V) on a UPS would be a technical challenge.
As for the motors, to keep the encoders powered that means another power supply (16V) in that enclosure that needs a UPS, and I'd have to get around to testing the following-error code
The motor's big power supply has pretty beefy capacitors - so much so that I have a discharge circuit on it's contactor for when I power it down.
My machine homes pretty accurately, at least enough for my purposes (woodworking) so a following error is not much better than a reset.
The spindle vfd is already monitored for faults (modbus).
Now I get to research tiny din-rail UPSs for 24V and 16V...
As for the motors, to keep the encoders powered that means another power supply (16V) in that enclosure that needs a UPS, and I'd have to get around to testing the following-error code

The motor's big power supply has pretty beefy capacitors - so much so that I have a discharge circuit on it's contactor for when I power it down.
My machine homes pretty accurately, at least enough for my purposes (woodworking) so a following error is not much better than a reset.
The spindle vfd is already monitored for faults (modbus).
Now I get to research tiny din-rail UPSs for 24V and 16V...

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