Electronics - Converting my Anycubic I3 Mega to run directly off solar and DC

Рет қаралды 1,496

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер

@Eli1566 4 ай бұрын

The modification is really simple, but your results were far better than I had expected. I'm going to have to do a similar mod to my printer.

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

Make sure to check the printer's power supply voltage. Some newer printers operate at 24 volts and you would need to use some kind of a 12 to 24 volt converter capable of handling the power

@Eli1566 4 ай бұрын

@@loughkb Thanks for the heads up. I'm fairly certain mine is 12v, but I'll be sure to double check before I do anything.

@hectorpascal 4 ай бұрын

@@loughkb Sadly DC to DC voltage upconverters are switching types which kind of defeats the object of the exercise. And the high current ones, to heat the hot end and bed, are also often exceptionally RF noisy 😦.

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

@@hectorpascal I have one now that's 12 to 19 volts that runs my laptop. It's not very noisy. And I can build filters for DC that I can put on each end.

@hectorpascal 4 ай бұрын

@@loughkb good to know!

@johnpawlicki1184 4 ай бұрын

Kevin, you got me into 3d printing years ago. Great video. Looks like advertised efficiencies of switching power supplies is a bit overstated. Thanks.

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

Well, they are much more efficient than linear power supplies. Linear power supplies tend to end up converting a fair percentage of power to heat.

@ohmbug10 4 ай бұрын

Excellent mod Kevin. It's also a good lesson on the inefficiencies of power conversion. That's one of the reasons why solar and wind energy is a bad idea for general use. They are of course good options for off-grid.

@davidsradioroom9678 4 ай бұрын

I can see why you want to run everything on DC. Great job, man!

@sincerelyyours7538 4 ай бұрын

Very impressive improvement! I've often thought of doing the same to the LED lights in my new house, but I resist hooking up a big battery and separate DC power lines to all those devices (there must be dozens). I also get a lot of QRM from all the solar inverters powering my neighbors' PV systems but I can't do much about that except wait for nightfall when their power outputs drop. Then there's my rig's 13.8V SMPS and the wall-warts powering my home network board which is unavoidably located only 10 feet from my radio bench. It's a never ending battle these days with QRM.

@TheVicar 4 ай бұрын

Efficiency is the spice of life Good work

@NickFrom1228 4 ай бұрын

Kevin, good to see you seem to have energy again. Hope to see more vids. Good vid. Somewhere in my house is something generating noise like your inverter is doing. I need to do some checking.

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

Put your radio on a battery, then turn off the breakers until the noise goes away. Then you know which circuit to concentrate on.

@NickFrom1228 4 ай бұрын

@@loughkb An excellent suggestion, thank you. I've somewhat put everything ham on hold as I redo my office floor and everything is in a pile in my livingroom:-) Anyway, I think I'll be doing this for sure when I get my radio bench setup again. Thanks.

@AlexejSvirid 4 ай бұрын

Hi, Kevin. 🙂 Modern PSUs use a full-wave rectifier right after AC power inlet (or, may be, after a common-mode filter) and filter it's DC out with a high voltage filtering capacitor. Then they just do a DC/DC down conversion. Their output is a half-wave rectifier, you say a Shottky diode, and filtering capacitor. So, your way to convert your printer to DC power is great, but we've got a second level DC - the high voltage one. IFAIK some solar power users buy a bunch of solar panels and connect them in series to produce a high voltage DC their equipment can be powered of. They even remove the full-wave rectifier out of their PSUs to reduce power losses. Of course, their batteries are connected in the same way. I don't know what is the charging controller they use. In the other hand, one can use a DC/DC up converter to get a high voltage DC consumable by modern PSU.

@lilblackduc7312 4 ай бұрын

Neat...I like it! Thank you for sharing that, Kevin...🇺🇸 👍☕

@harmtuntler8555 3 ай бұрын

Fantastic Kevin

@owlcricker-k7ulm 4 ай бұрын

Very interesting and thought creating.

@johnrc5847 4 ай бұрын

Hi Kevin... Good to see your videos are back. I would have put diodes in series with the AC supply and the battery to keep them isolated just in case. Stay well, John k0ebc

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

They are already are there. The output devices in the power supply are semiconductors. Essentially diodes in that they will only conduct in one direction.

@eliekadi_OD5KU_KU5OD 4 ай бұрын

Hi I did the same with my cpap machine tks for your valuable videos

@robincross4625 4 ай бұрын

At the very least, I would install a toggle switch for DC/AC. That way neither can corrupt the other. Or possibly a better solution is to put two diodes in. so either feeds the load but neither bother the other.

@loughkb 4 ай бұрын

Well, you're not going to plug DC into it when you're running it off AC so that's not a problem. And the power supplies output section is solid state devices, semiconductors. They essentially are diodes in that they only conduct in one direction. The power supply presents absolutely no load to the external DC. And the toggle switch would have to be able to handle 10 amps plus, so it would be a big chunky switch. Not necessary.

@davidsheedy5793 3 ай бұрын

great video...

@Tarakian1999 4 ай бұрын

Very cool.

@Tokyo1991.JL1AJE 3 ай бұрын

Normal 3D printer user, installs quiet stepper drivers, quieter fans and custom firmware (removing that boot up beep). Ham Radio 3D printer user: hold my beer! I have the exact same printer. With the audible spectrum mods applied. As for RF noise on the inverter. I took a different approach and installed a mic socket on it. 🤪

@curtstacy779 4 ай бұрын

I had to ground the 3D printer chassy even when hooked to line voltage. it would make interference with other electronics. but when I grounded the whole chassy it cleared it all up.