Lets Talk Wiring And EMI

hi we run 5 Plasmas in a shop
Most time EMI is efecting it is simply a loose or non good Plasma table to Torche Ground
as many dont like to clean the table on workday end or after a real hard cut

i never got any problem on Cable
we use for steppers Double shielded Robot cable outer ground to mashine
inner Ground to control

the homing is standard single shielded chain cable 2x0,5mm²
as we use mainly Me-8111 switches

ot the LJ12A3 BX induktive NPN NO with 12V that takes the emi to Vanpower and not furthere

Main issue is the House grounding or shop plasmas may requirer a shorter cable
WE did drill at every plasma to the ground 10mm Hole and put in a 2meter iron to MOTHER earth
as well as the Airpipes are grounded

the control is in the same cycle as the 400V plasma only the PC is on a other line within the shop

Ironicly if the Powersuplyer changes Phases on the City line it may fail as here all out as torch start
realy it blowes out the PC and shop lights go of on

then i did change the UVW to VUW and all is good again till the next power swap

As for power supplies, I insist on using old laptop power bricks as much as I can, but lately I can not find much of them. They are very good, filtering is good, completely isolated, current limited (this becomes very important when something goes wrong), and firing 2 or 3 of them in series is easy as they are isolated ( be aware that some do have the grounding wired to the negative output terminal, so. It has to be disconnected, simply done by using a power cable with no ground contacts ).

Would you mind providing an example configuration of this? I don't understand how you can get the current capacity you would need to power a full control cabinet. Or do you use, say, a brick or two for each driver, some for the interface board, etc... I see some people with switching supplies and some with torroidal transformers going to DIN power supplies- I'm a little lost on how I'm going to distribute power in my build

Internet if full of .... well everything.
As a result of that, there are plenty of info regarding electronics stuff from good to plain dangerous and utterly stupid.
It does not matter what type of power supply you use, switch mode is cheaper and easier to work with and much lighter in weight ( for a machine not important at all ), all that matters is:
-DO NOT ever buy a 50V power supply for drives that have 50V written on them, the cheap ones will just blow the instant you turn them on. Always leave 10 to 20% margin under the max declared voltage. There is a huge difference between "absolute maximum ratings" and normal working rating for electronics, cheap ones have that absolute rating written on them.
-Get the most powerful one you can afford and forget about the "internet math" that if you have 3 drives at 5A you need a 15A power supply, you don't never ever need that. As a general rule, half of that is a very safe value for any power supply over 24V ( yes yes the current drawn is very dependant on the voltage provided, more voltage=less current, so at 60 to 70V you could get away with just 5A supply and everything would work just fine. Note that there are very few drives that can handle that kind of voltage and they are not cheap )
As for the above example i made with laptop power bricks, if you have to ask for an example, do not go that route. Any miss wiring will result in lots of smoke and/or bodily harm, as intentionally removing grounding is not a good idea.
Since this might make it more difficult for you to decide, her are some safe values:
24 to 36V at 10 to 15A SMPS is enough for 90% of use cases. At 30 to 50$ there is nothing cheaper. I use the above mentioned solution as i can not find anything above 12V here, and i get the used laptop bricks for 10 to 15 euro a piece, so for me it is a very nice solution.

I've attached a photo of what I'm thinking in regard to panel layout and my wiring plan (more or less) for reference. Any thoughts on layout in regard to emi?

When mounted vertically the drivers will be up top and all the signal and motor wires will come up through the bottom of the box (right hand side of the photo).

In the layout photo disregard lines drawn to the wrong terminals, it is just a quick rough sketch to illustrate the plan.

The star ground should be external to the control panel and pick up wires from all of the motors as shown in earlier photos.
This point should also be connected to the work clamp.
If you use a ground rod, it should also be connected here.
Your control panel star ground should also connect to the main star ground.

I'm worried that you will not find the 24v power supply adequate for your motors. if the controllers will handle it, it would be best to add a 48v - 72v power supply

rodw wrote: The star ground should be external to the control panel and pick up wires from all of the motors as shown in earlier photos.
This point should also be connected to the work clamp.
If you use a ground rod, it should also be connected here.
Your control panel star ground should also connect to the main star ground.

Just to clarify, you're saying the shielding for the stepper wire cables doesn't need to be brought into the panel at all but grounded to the table's star ground?

I'm worried that you will not find the 24v power supply adequate for your motors. if the controllers will handle it, it would be best to add a 48v - 72v power supply

I'm running little nema 17's in a "ultra" light weight gantry following in the footsteps of these guys photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM89Fbp8muj...SlhLTE5PV3YwT0tPVTV3 and this one photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMiajgLm1U0...STMwOGVaYkdEVThaOTlR hopefully I'll have enough juice.