Has anyone tried installing a large uninterruptable power supply (UPS) on a PCNC 440 to avoid sudden power loss or spikes? We had thunderstorms roll through yesterday and made me think of that. I wouldn’t need it to run more than a few minutes to give me time to stop things properly and shut everything down. I don’t leave my mill running without being nearby.
My shop also has GFCI outlets which I read in the manual not to use as they can cause problems for the mill. I have a drop cord running across the shop to the only outlet that doesn’t have it, but I’d like to avoid doing that if I can.
You would probably want a UPS that outputs a sine wave instead of the chopped signal the cheap ones do to protect the electronics, but as long as the current capacity matches the machine it should work.
When I first got my mill I had the power go out once. I thought about getting the ups but once I priced it out I decided to skip it. It’s not that expensive but I wanted other toys more. Power hasn’t gone out since then.
That said the thunderstorms in Texas were like that scene in war of the worlds where the lightning blows a hole in the ground every week but I never had anything get a “surge” and break. You’re probably looking at $2,000 for a 20amp UPS. You could probably find an older one for computer servers. You need tormach engineer to say definitively if you need a sine wave ups but probably not (depends on how nice the 440s dc transformer is). At worst it would probably trigger the e-stop when the power goes out. At best just normal with beeping.
I am in the part of Texas where we get spectacular thunderstorms but I don’t use the lathe or mill during those and unplug them from the wall when they won’t be in use for a while, but I suspect in a straight power outage the contactor would drop out and it would be a mess to reset but probably wouldn’t do anything worse than break a tool.
Oh yea I grew up on those. So dark in the front yard just blinding lightning melting the neighbours house even though more water than Niagara Falls is pouring down and sunny in the back yard.