Downdraft design questions

rodw wrote:

I don't ever remember changing any THC settings, it just worked out of the box!

Are you referring to the other company, based in Texas?

txtrone wrote:

Perhaps I am traumatized after using 'their' equipment, and their forums for that matter...

The people on this forum are something else. When I first started I asked all the dumb newbie questions but did not get flamed or ridiculed, instead they helped me understand why I was having problems and I worked through them to get my machine up and running.

This has to be the best and most helpful forum I have ever used.

txtrone wrote:

rodw wrote:

I don't ever remember changing any THC settings, it just worked out of the box!

Are you referring to the other company, based in Texas?

Nah, referring to Plasmac back when it was so new. I threw out 100s of hours of earlier work on Linuxcnc at that time. Plasmac was nowhere near as polished then. A lot of my findings and outcomes from experiments got incorporated into Plasmac along the way. Several other early LCNC pioneers made their contributions to. Now I can't keep up with the latest features!

I know your ducting is done but I saw this pic on a machinery sale ad.


I think I'd use a 1 micron pleated filter.

And you can get spark arresters which are cool
www.nordfab.com/en/products/qf-ducting/s...b-in-line-spark-trap

rodw wrote:

I know your ducting is done but I saw this pic on a machinery sale ad. And you can get spark arresters which are cool
www.nordfab.com/en/products/qf-ducting/s...b-in-line-spark-trap

Interesting. Almost all of the duct I bought is Nordfab brand.

Got the motor wired up to VFD. I filmed this while my my copilot spooled up the blower to full throttle... which occurs at roughly the 30 second mark in this video.

With the blower connected to the duct, and half of the blast gates open, it is pretty amazing how much air is moving through each gate. I am really excited to see how much goes through only one gate!

So the blower, duct work, and solenoids are installed and plumbed. The only thing left is to connect the solenoids to the Mesa card... of course that needs to be installed first.

As you can see my hobbies sort of collided on my workbench.


I did manage to get the power supplies, Mesa card, drivers, etc mounted up on Friday, and some wiring today, which I forgot to photograph. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will connect the wires from the limit/home switches and motors and probably spend the rest of the day reading the documents on how to configure everything.

Those meanwell power supplies are great, I use them on my machine.

Hmm, I have a feeling you could use the 7i76e's spindle control to control the VFD motor speed. Just occurred to me!

rodw wrote:

Hmm, I have a feeling you could use the 7i76e's spindle control to control the VFD motor speed. Just occurred to me!

That would be nice!

I will feel better when I get the gantry moving properly.