Power recommendations on the Altmill 4x8 page

Community Discussion 📄 General
1

Hi folks,

I’m thinking about ordering one of the shiny new 4x8 Altmills over here in the UK, the delivery latency matching up well because I have to demolish/rebuild the garage it’ll be housed in before it arrives… Anyhoo, there’s a section on the 4x8 product page …

“If you live in a country with 220V/240V power you must use a transformer to convert to 110V/120V.

  • To solely run the machine, you need a rating above 500W

  • To run the machine and spindle, you need a rating of 2000W”

I’m kind of curious about that - from what I can gather there are power requirements for the spindle (which will be fine because I’ll order the 200v kit) and the controller (which I believe the above refers to).

However, the controller is a 48v DC supply, so in theory I could just get a 240v → 48v PSU (something like this Meanwell one), snip the barrel plug (or whatever) off the original to make sure it’s the right one, and wire it up without the AC voltage converter, right ? Or am I missing something ?

2

Hey Simon,

You are right, if 48Vdc is what the slb-ext needs, you can feed it with a good stabelized power supply that runs on real power. I’ve schosen to run my longmill on a 240/120V 500W stepdown transformator because that was the cheapest solution I could find, and I am a cheapo. Never had any problems with it.

The Longmill is only rated at say 300/400W tops so it does not have to work too hard. It does bark a wee when switched on but setles down in a stable 60hz pur right after the initial shock of having to work. The router was sourced local so real power rated.

So if ya wanna go cheap, get a down stepper that can handle say a kilowatt and maybe save a buck. Just make sure you have looked at the slb-ext specs if you gonna replace the power supply.

Good luck.

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