Re: Lightbulbs and Power Resistors?

You could be a little bit unorthodox and just fit a simple household 110 volt globe across the cap. At 63 volts it will illuminate in the yellow range instead of white light but will be quite visible. By altering the wattage of the globe you can alter the cap discharge time. More watts means faster discharge.

Regards
Bob Thomas

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Chris and Dee <brunoblazer@y...>" <brunoblazer@y...> wrote:
> Just after Thanksgiving I fired up my CNC retrofit for the first
> time. I was quite excited when I ran my first G-code program on my
> modified machine and watched the machine mill a ..... square.
>
> Now I'm taking some time to:
>
> 1.) Build my power supply (original testing was done on a 6a 40v
> switching supply from work). I'm building a 63 v 22 amp p/s with a
> 1KVA torroid I bought.
>
> 2.) Package the motor drivers, breakout board, and p/s in a nice box.
>
>
> So I built my power supply and it outputs 63v. Great! Except that
> once its charged, even if I shut down the p/s, I can't hookup
> anything to the connector I have coming off of the capacitor unless I
> creatively and safely discharge the capacitor (we all know how much
> DC voltage likes to ARC). I also don't have anything but my
> multimeter to tell me if the capacitor still has a charge. I tried
> using a power resistor from Rad shack on the capacitor so that when
> the AC power was removed the cap would discharge somewhat quicker.
> However, they don't have any that are rated high enough (or I'm too
> electronically challenged to know what one to buy or how to hook it
> up). I also wanted to hookup 4 lightbulbs (or LEDS, I don't care) to
> show me when the cap has a charge and for each of my 3 drivers to
> show when power is going to the driver. The only problem with this
> is that I can't find any bulbs rated for that voltage does rad shack
> carry any voltage regulators for that voltage (not to mention that I
> would prefer not to have to solder voltage regulators to each bulb).
>
> Can anybody tell me what resistor to buy and how to hook it up safely
> (I thought it just went across the leads of the cap, but maybe this
> is wrong). Also, any ideas on how to install bulbs or LEDs to tell
> me when the cap and drivers have voltage?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Chris Bruno
> http://www.slideruleracing.com