Power Supply Questions for small setup

[larrycameron44]

Hey guys I have ordered my 2 x 4 Torchmate and Powermax 65 from Torchmate, but will this draw to much of a load on the typical house electrical feed to the garage?

[jmsrbrt]

I ran a separate service to my garage, 60 amps if I remember, and everything is fine. Nothing works at the same time anyway. The plasma comes on and off, as does the compressor, and so forth. Your service, or "feed" however should still be sized for the load. If you plan on just plugging into a 240 volt outlet you have existing, you may be in trouble with voltage drop. Bob.

[pony]

Hey guys I have ordered my 2 x 4 Torchmate and Powermax 65 from Torchmate, but will this draw to much of a load on the typical house electrical feed to the garage?

The Torchmate table doesn't draw too much current. I run mine on a circuit with other items in my workshop. The compressor is on its own circuit. I did need to add a new circuit for the plasma cutter.

There is not really such a thing as a 'typical' feed to the garage. Can you describe how many circuits are available in your garage, and what they are rated at. What is your compressor rated at. How thick a material do you plan to cut.

You will have times when the table is driving all 3 motors, the plasma is firing, and the compressor kicks in, all at the same time.
IMHO if you have space in your existing breaker panel then run a dedicated circuit for the plasma cutter.

[TerraWombat]

I have three, separate circuits for my entire system.

A 50A 240VAC circuit for my Thermal Dynamics Cutmaster 52

A 30A 240VAC circuit for my 5HP 60-gallon compressor

A 20A 120VAC circuit for the table. I also run a 1HP motor for an exhaust fan on this circuit, but not much else.

I have another 20A 120VAC circuit for my PC, shop lights, space heater, workbench power strip. I've never tested the table to see how much current is actually draws, but my manufacturer (ez-router) told me it was 15A. Not sure if I buy that...

I have an outdoor light on my shop that is on yet another separate circuit (but in the same main breaker box as all of the above mentioned) that has a sensor to make it automatically come on at night. Whenever my compressor kicks on or my plasma torch fires, the light goes out, but then immediately comes back on within a few seconds. It must look pretty odd to the passer-bys on the road when I'm cutting a piece out with dozens of pierces and the light keeps going on and off!

[mdwalker]

Hey guys I have ordered my 2 x 4 Torchmate and Powermax 65 from Torchmate, but will this draw to much of a load on the typical house electrical feed to the garage?

Larry,

I'm no electrician but in my opinion if you are not familiar enough with electricity & wiring to know for sure if you are drawing too much of a load then you should consult with an electrician in your area. Not saying the comments here are right or wrong, but you need to know how much load your equipment is drawing and what all is on any particular circuit you are using as well as the size of wiring. Just because something is working for somebody else doesn't necessarily make it right & the cost of an electrician is definately cheaper than replacing your home, plus, you want to spend your time cutting, not resetting breakers Just my 2 cents

[TerraWombat]

Larry,

I'm no electrician but in my opinion if you are not familiar enough with electricity & wiring to know for sure if you are drawing too much of a load then you should consult with an electrician in your area. Not saying the comments here are right or wrong, but you need to know how much load your equipment is drawing and what all is on any particular circuit you are using as well as the size of wiring. Just because something is working for somebody else doesn't necessarily make it right & the cost of an electrician is definately cheaper than replacing your home, plus, you want to spend your time cutting, not resetting breakers Just my 2 cents

Good advice and it's always best to talk to the professionals if you're the slightest bit unsure of anything electrical or wiring-related. I wanted to do it myself to save money and so far (knock on wood) everything has been good. Your plasma operators manual will have an entire section devoted to the installation and recommended wiring of your unit. I followed their guide and used a 50A fuse and 6Ga. wire (they called for 10Ga.) just to be on the safe side.

I used the nameplate on my air compressor motor to determine the maximum load it can draw and then sized the breaker accordingly and also got the proper wiring gauge to handle the amperage load.

It certainly didn't happen overnight and I spent a lot of time researching and finding web pages with DIY wiring installations and took notes. My lead time for my plasma table was 8-12 weeks so I had a bit of time to prepare.

[coupebuilder]

For anyone who is interested I just picked up a book called "Wiring Simplified" at Home Depot. List on the book was 14.95 and Depot had a bunch of them for 5.99 all based on the 2008 National Electrical Code. Quite a bit of good info, diagrams and section on wiring outbuildings. Muh better than the other wiring books I have. The same guys wrote a book called "Practical Electrical Wiring" that I picked up on Amazon for about 35.00 and that covers a lot of industrial circuits, relays, ssr's, motors, etc. A lot on 3-phase wiring also. Well worth the money in my opinion. We are building a powdercoat oven and it gives a lot of info on the circuitry we are encountering.

[elkriverfab]

Larry,

Here is what I did and it helped a lot with my electrical needs.

I added a 100 amp breaker in my main service panel in the shop, wired that to a 240 volt three prong outlet.

I then built a spider box that consists of a service panel on a stand with wheels.
This spider box has a 240 volt outlet for the plasma torch (on it's own breaker-50 amps), eight separate 110 outlets dropped to 110 volts (on their own breakers-30 amps) and a surge protector strip on of the outlets for various needs.

The spider box has a long extension cord with very heavy duty cord to carry a lot of juice to the spider box.

The box allows me to tap into 100 amps on the main service panel and run all my cutting equipment on separate breakers to keep from tripping while cutting. (cutting table is in the middle of the shop so only one power cord runs across floor to equipment).

I will say my compressor is wired to a 240 outlet coming out from the main service panel and not tied into the spider box I built (less draw from spider box).

One good thing is...... If I need to run a outlet hot enough to hook my welders up and run outside the shop, I can use the spider box by unplugging the cutter, table and computer.

This makes for a long extension cord with a lot of power on the other end.

I have used this set up for over 5 years and have never tripped a breaker on the main or the spider box.

I use to build a lot of spider boxes when I worked for a remodeling business and we needed to have enough power in a house after a disaster to rebuild or clean up.

Tapped into their main service panel and ran our spider boxes to safely run power into a customers home without drawing too many amps or overloading circuits.

We did this because the house was either flooded out with water or burned from forest fires, burned from bad appliances and so on.

It allowed us to run a lot of equipment when wall outlets were not available.

You would need to buy a service panel for the spider box (mine has slots for 10 breakers).

Make a stand with wheels to mount the service panel to.... (make it with a cord holder to hold 30 feet or more of heavy duty cord when not in use).

You will also need outlet boxes (110 and 240 volt).

The outlet boxes are mounted to the service panel on the spider box (neat and clean).

It is very simple to build and if done correctly, very safe and can be used for so many different projects other than the cutting table.

If you have any questions, just ask.....

[TerraWombat]

If you have any questions, just ask.....

May I see a picture of this setup, please?

[AnotherDano]

My spider box sounds identical to yours, Elkriver. I made it for use at motorcycle rallys when I did a lot of work with the vendor areas. Couldn't do without it!.

Sorry Terra, it's in storage and I have no pictures. But like Elk described, it's just a light/medium duty handcart with a service panel mounted to it. The breakers are wired to outlet boxes which are arranged on a plywood panel below the box.

Another advantage of the setup is the choices of service. I made jumpers that have connections for a gen set and just about any plug configuration you can think of - keeping in mind the amperage requirements etc. If you make one, be sure to provide yourself with a lock for the panel door, laminated usage warnings (instructions) and anything else you need to keep people who don't know what they're dealing with away from using it.

[Eagle Mtn Metal Works]

Hi guys
As a ex electrician when you are messing with electricity is is always better to check with your local electrical contractor to set up your system. There is a lot to consider when hocking up equipment like wire size and the proper sizing of the power supply. I have seen a lot of fires due to undersizing the wire and the breaker under or over sized for the wire size. Always check with a qualified technician when hocking up electrical equipment. I would hate to read about a fire due to improper installation of the electrical system. Just my 2 cents. Gool luck.

[AnotherDano]

Hi guys
As a ex electrician when you are messing with electricity is is always better to check with your local electrical contractor to set up your system. There is a lot to consider when hocking up equipment like wire size and the proper sizing of the power supply. I have seen a lot of fires due to undersizing the wire and the breaker under or over sized for the wire size. Always check with a qualified technician when hocking up electrical equipment. I would hate to read about a fire due to improper installation of the electrical system. Just my 2 cents. Gool luck.

Your two cents is worth a million, Rod.
Mine was built with the advice and approval of a master sparky.
No one should build or use these things unless they know exactly how to properly use it - and it's limitations.

[Eagle Mtn Metal Works]

Hey Dano
Just don't want to see anyone hurt.

[AnotherDano]

Hey Dano
Just don't want to see anyone hurt.

Me neither. We're on the same page!

At the MC rallies, I catch the vendors trying to plug in additional cords all the time. Doesn't do 'em any good though. The breakers to the open outlets are all switched off and the panel door has a lock on it.

[elkriverfab]

Terrawombat,

I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them for you.

And yes, don't under size the wiring and go bigger if in doubt.
Especially with the long extension cord going to the spider box to main service panel.

When the spider box is put together you can select the proper breakers to put in it for your needs.

On mine, I actually ran a direct ground wire from the 3 prong plug near my main panel to earth ground.

This way when I plug things into the spider box all grounds go to direct ground in the main service panel rather than having to go through a ground buss bar first.

I figured it would be a good idea and maybe over kill but better to be safe.

If done correctly and planned out some, it will provide a great way to run tools and like I said.......It can be used as a long power extension cord for 220 welders without dropping amps.

I can plug my stick welder in and run it over 20 feet out in front of my workshop for those projects I want to keep outside the shop.

I can crank the welder to full power, weld all day and never get any overheated cords, breakers or main service panel breakers.

Before I built the spider box I would be running a 220 volt air compressor, plasma cutter, down draft blower, computer, monitor and other tools while cutting and it would affect something all the time.

Compressor would start up (5 horse electric motor) would pull hard at start up, dim the lights in the shop, slow down the down draft for a few seconds and so on. A lot of drain from the main panel.

Breakers would get warm and just all around concerned me if i was running the table for a long time with all the required tools running too.

I decided to split everything off to its own breakers, wiring and outlets.

When I did the spider box I also replaced the small service panel in the shop with one that was updated and had a lot more room for more breakers.

Now no more warm or hot breakers, no tripped breakers and a safe way to move large amounts of power around the shop when needed.

I usually keep all the plasma table stuff plugged into it but when I need to move power outside, I unplug and roll it out to where I need it.