Hi all…
We are looking at buying our third X-carve, this time the 500mm. We want to take to shows and carve on spot. Does anyone know how big of a generator will be needed to do this. To power the 500mm x-carve?
Thanks
Wayne
I’m not an expert or anything but this may be a viable option for you.
Buy one of these:
6 Function Mini Clamp Meter from harbor freight. It’s just $10 or less with coupon…
https://www.harborfreight.com/digital-clamp-meter-96308.html
It’s not nearly as good as a Fluke meter but for what we are talking about it will do the job.
Then plug both the X-carve and the spindle/router into a single heavy gauge extension cord. Put the clamp around the cord and start measuring the Current/Amps. Run the X-Carve with a pretty aggressive cutting profile so you are putting some stress on both the spindle and the steppers (which should drive the current up closer to max running values) all the while keeping an eye on the meter.
Multiplying the peak Amps times the Voltage (115V in the US) will give you the watts you are consuming.
I think that is all it would take. If I’m missing something hopefully someone else will speak up here…
The Dewalt 611 needs about 1500 watts, the 4 steppers need about 200 watts so I would guess that a 2,000 watt generator would be fine. So something like this should work.
I thought I had heard that power from generators is not clean (noisy) and might cause issues with the controller.
Can anyone comment on that aspect?
The power from a modern generator is pretty clean.
I am not that familiar with generators so I can’t speak as to how clean or dirty their power is, but if it does seem to be an issue using an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) should help with it a lot. A UPS will limit any spikes in the power and use the onboard battery to boost any voltage shortfalls. The APC brand has a very good reputation…
If you put the meter around the extension cord as is you won’t get any reading or at the very least a low and wrong reading. This way you need to cut the extension cord and just put the clamp meter around either the black or white wire inside. Putting it around both ( or around the whole cord) causes the readings to cancel each other out.
Ok, Thanks for the head up.
Thank you everyone. I at least have a start. Now to convince the hubby to let me buy a third X-Carve… lol
you’re going to want to use an inverter generator for this. I’m sure others have chimed in.
you can run everything on a power inverter off your vehicle. computer + xcarve + dewalt 611
my van has it and mine just fine.
The DeWalt 611 is a 1.25HP 110v 7A machine, which equates to about 770 watts .