Hi!

I just received my Smoothstepper and I would like to use it with my Toshiba M30 laptop and a 4 axis Xylotex "ready to use" driver box.
Since I am a Newbie and heard about all the dangers coming from ground loops, power spikes etc. I was wondering if it could be a problem for the Smoothstepper that my laptop does not have a grounded power source. The AC plug is only a two pin...no ground line.

Thanks for your inputs!

Andre
 

 
Hi...nobody an idea?

  A good bet would be to ask the makers of the controller box whether it would be indeed safe for the laptop or not.  Judging only by their pictures, it does appear that it's plugin for power APPEARS to have grounding, but as I don't have that sytem in my hands to physically tear apart and look at it, I cannot say whether they have the internals wired for an application like this or not.

  An approach I would use in a case like this, would be to build an add-in board with extra diodes, and a few extra chips to ensure that THEY would get fried instead of the laptop if something went horribly wrong...if someone else happens to have a schematic in this case, please feel free to add that to this thread too...many may benefit from it (I would, but don't presently have it drawn out right now)

Thanks for your thoughts, shadow!

I'm more concerned about the smoothstepper itself than about the laptop... The laptop is designed to run without a ground. The question is what happens when the laptop builds up a potential and this would run through the USB port/smoothstepper into the ground...(if this is possible at all... I have no idea...  )

I thought the makers of the smoothstepper are here in the forum. I was hoping they could give me an answer...

Thanks

Andre

Andre,
I would suggest you post your question directly to the Warp9td site.
RICH

I am running the SmoothStepper on a laptop with no ground on the laptop power.
I was using it on a laptop that had a ground, and it gave me all kinds of problems with the SS disconnecting from Mach all the time (ground loop??).
On the laptop with no ground, it works fine so far....
I have the SS powered from the USB, in it's own enclosure, and is not grounded to anything else (except the USB). Step/Direction going to the G320 amps are already opto-isolated.
Hope this helps. It can be a bugger to get the SS to stay connected reliably if there are ground and noise issues.

Hi!

I tried it this weekend! Works like a charm! No connection issues (and no white smoke )! I am really new to the whole CNC thing but setting up the smoothstepper with my xylotex box was a simple plug and play operation! Worked right away. I have no opto board....just the Laptop -> smoothstepper (powered by the usb and not extra grounded)-> xylotex 4 axis box.
My Sidewinder CNC is doing 350 ipm rapids absolutely reliable (acceleration set to 10). Even 500 ipm worked but this is really not necessary on that small machine...

I love the smoothstepper...you can use other programs on your laptop while the machine is running through the g code...awesome!

Thanks for your help!