Heater Blower causing emissions that stop the X-Carve

X-Carve Troubleshooting
1

I wonder if anyone else had seen this. After my upgrade, everything was running fine with simple projects. I decided to do a big project that I needed to use one of my Pro Days on. I started the job and halfway through, the X-Carve locked up. I tried a couple of more times and it continued to lock up but with no consistency. The next day I tie a couple of other simple jobs and the same thing was happening. After reading the forms, I bought a new USB cable and I even switched computers. I am running from a Macintosh that has nowhere near the issues PCs have with USB.

After many trials, I notices that the machine stopped just as the heater blower kicked on. The heater is a BigMaxx by Mr. Heater and is mounted directly over the X-carve. It is also plugged into the same circuit as the X-Carve. So I moved it to another circuit on a different phase. It continued to happen. Next, I ran an extension cord to the house which is a whole different service. Still happened.

So I have ruled out the computer, the USB cable, and power. Finally, I moved the X-carve to another location in my shop and it works great. The best I can tell is some sort of radiated emissions coming from the relay on the heater blower. It also happens when the heater blower relay kicks off. Moving it to a new location works, but is really not great for the workflow in my shop. Has anyone else seen this type of issue? Is there a way to shield the X-carve or the heater to keep it from happening?

2

Depending on what is actually going on inside the heater, I would definitely agree that if the only resolution was to move the X-Carve to a completely different location away from the heater then EMF is the likely culprit.

I have directly observed EMF-induced voltage on an unused sensor input totally mess up the control board operation for a million-dollar inverter.

If it is EMF from a relay or contactor it will likely not be feasible for you to shield that inside the heater.

One thing you can do is strip back all of the stepper-cable jackets at the X-Controller side enough to get to the shield/drain foil/wire inside the cable. Either connect them all together or purchase some connectors specific for clamping onto it and once you have them all connected, connect them to a GND connection on the lower set of connectors. This will provide a path for any voltage induced on the Shield/Drain to be passed to the GND within the controller.

{:0)

Brandon Parker

3

Thanks Brandon, that is what I was thinking as well. I just tried another test, moving the X-Carve just a few feet away, so that is not directly under the heater and on the opposite side from the heater control card. It seems to be working fine with limited testing. I will run it some more tomorrow before I make the swap terminate, but maybe this will be the simplest solution. Crazy what you run into these days.

Steven