Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Blown Gecko 320..Strange noises from control???

R Rogers wrote:

>/Sounds like hitting a piece of sheet metal with the bottom of your fist. I know it's weird. I think the voltage dip from the line or possibly my primary wiring as you've suggested may be the culprit. In the morning I'm going to go over it with a fine tooth comb for a possible short, I've been really busy lately and havent had alot of time to clean and chips are all over everything.
>

I was recently working on a large (LARGE!) power supply, and we were
surprised to hear clunking from it whenever I put a scope probe near the
DSP. It turned out to be the transformers getting whacked by line
voltage, and the magnetics would expand/contract when this happened
(this supply was connected to the 13,800 V mains). You may have a
problem around the transformer - I'd clean there first :).

>Jon, If they dont already make one, what would be great to have is a small device someone could plug into a receptacle and monitor voltage over a long period of time. It could monitor a certain bracket of voltage and report when the line dropped out of or exceeded this bracket and generate a reviewable record. If I had that I could just leave it in a receptacle and come back later and see what that voltage profile has been and see if the noise occurences correspond to the device's report. Lcd screen scroll through the events..haha, I dont ask for much.
>
>Ron
>

Funny you would mention a device like that. I just considered designing
one today :)

Basically, I was thinking of a power and/or voltage monitor, with a
touchscreen (or a couple of buttons) for reviewing data, and a serial
port so you could dump it to a computer. I can't remember *why* I
thought of it - maybe to see what the power draw of the individual
servos are (power plots of each servo over a machine run would be
interesting, but possibly useless, to see).

- Steve