Electrical interference issues?

Mill
1

Hello ~ I am looking for some ideas / suggestions to address an electrical interference issue with my Tormach machines.

I own a 770M and an 8L lathe that are located in my garage workshop. I also have a 10+ year old Lincoln 225 TIG welder I use for fabrication projects. Early on when I first got the 770M, I discovered that if I attempted to use the TIG welder while the mill was running, or even just turned on idling, it would trip the machine into reset. It doesn’t seem to be permanently damaging the machines as they come out of reset just fine, but obviously I don’t want that to happen while a program is running. The issue seems to be related to the high frequency pulse from the welder when initially striking the arc, causing electrical interference in the power supply line. I know my wife has commented that she will often see the lights in the house flicker when I am welding down in the garage. Currently, I either power down my machines, or at least hit the e-stop, before doing any welding, just to be safe. Obviously, that is not ideal from an efficiency of work standpoint though, as I’d like be running programs to make parts while I am also doing fabrication work.

The welder is on it’s own dedicated 240V circuit, separate from the 120V circuit used by the two CNC machines. All the circuits are grounded back to the main panel where the main ground for the entire house connects.

I am wondering what options I have to insulate the machines from this electrical noise?

Some possible ideas I am considering would be:

  1. Adding a ground rod at the welder power outlet
  2. Sourcing an EMI filter to put on the power supply line to welder and/or the CNC machines

Has anyone else had similar issues?
Any ideas or suggestions?

2

I have a Thermal Dynamics TSW-185 and for nearly 20 years it has been run on three different electrical panels. While I hear that HF arc starts don’t play nice with nearby computers, I haven’t run into this in the past with computers on the same panel going haywire as some have reported. Ditto for computers operating nearby but they have typically been laptops.

I was especially nervous welding on my vehicles with any engine or other computers plugged in where the HF would damage them, even when powered off, but I haven’t experienced that (I stopped unplugging ECUs some years back but it might bite me in the future…)

A related topic of interest is if you read about trying to use a plasma cutter with HF with a CNC. The easy answer is to that question is buy a newer one without HF (can’t really do that with TIG, maybe if you are a glutton for punishment you could work on your scratch starts?) while others suggest it can be done with shielded wiring and obsessive and specific grounding measures. Searching for this (CNC and HF) may provide you with some applicable suggestions and knowledge.

I would try a filter. I would hesitate to change grounding without further research on potential safety issues and impact of electrical code. I seem to recall reading the same (grounding rod) for HF and CNC…

3

No clue how to help but I have Tormach lathe 15L and if I turn on my belt sander (110v) it trips the lathe into reset also.