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UPS for my flatbed?

artifacture

New Member
I have a JFX200/2352EX and we periodically have thunderstorms. On a bad storm earlier this year, we had several pieces of electronics damaged. Luckily, they were repairable for a few hundred dollars in parts. But the cost of parts is only one expense, as the loss of use is much greater.

I'm working on installing surge suppression, but having 3-phase power, those aren't devices going between the device and it's power connection, but rather, devices that seem to provide an easier path to ground. I asked the mimaki tech today and he recommended a UPS. While I would love that, ones large enough seem to be in the $5-7,000 range which isn’t in the budget right now. If I could power the vacuum pump separately, I could likely reduce the size and price of the required ups. But I don't know if that's possible.
 

Smoke_Jaguar

Man who touches printers inappropriately.
208V UPSs aren't too bad on the used market, want something in the 2500-2700W+ range. The main draw on the machine is the suction table, the printer itself doesn't draw much otherwise. Server rack style units are easily available on eBay and can be had used for around $300-$500. You might need to get a twist-lock cable if your printer doesn't have one, and you can find them on eBay or places like McMaster Carr. I believe the printer connection is a C19 style and you'll need a twist-lock type plug on most UPSs.
 

netsol

Active Member
find yourself a nice Eaton, rated double wat the load isaed at. realistically, expect it to protect the equipment MOST LIKELY, but, the idea that you won't damage the job that is cutting whenthe disturance occurs is a fantasy.
 

netsol

Active Member
in 2012 we installed a vcenter to virtualize about 30 physical servers at my largest client. (IBM spec'ed and installed)
we found a .5 megawatt kohler generator that powered a small hospital in the midwest, purchased it, transported to new jersey and installed with the proper tranfer switch
IBM spec'ed an Eaton to protect the vcenter (vcenter was a $180,000 investment)
new jersey often has power failures like brazil in the 1920's and we had quite a few problems with the transition when the power went off, we switched to UPS power for 6 seconds, then went to generator power (and the reverse when power came back on)

2 or 3 times over the years we had to rebuild and recover raid 10 disk arrays (hours on the phone with IBM or Cisco) in spite of the whole system being properly laid out & protected

MY POINT IS, your equipment will not be phase controlled during switchover, so, expect to protect your equpment from major damage, but, don't expect it to be completely transparent to you
when switchovers occur. you will often damage a production piece that is being run,
 

Mrkopr

New Member
I have a JFX200/2352EX and we periodically have thunderstorms. On a bad storm earlier this year, we had several pieces of electronics damaged. Luckily, they were repairable for a few hundred dollars in parts. But the cost of parts is only one expense, as the loss of use is much greater.

I'm working on installing surge suppression, but having 3-phase power, those aren't devices going between the device and it's power connection, but rather, devices that seem to provide an easier path to ground. I asked the mimaki tech today and he recommended a UPS. While I would love that, ones large enough seem to be in the $5-7,000 range which isn’t in the budget right now. If I could power the vacuum pump separately, I could likely reduce the size and price of the required ups. But I don't know if that's possible.
Living in SW Florida, we use APC ups on both Mimaki 6042's one for each along with all of our computers, and four epsons p800 and 900 (we also have a gas generator backup for the building), I personally haven't lost a job or have had damage because of surge in10 plus years and as you can imagine it's like every other day here in SW FL.
 

artifacture

New Member
I'm not expecting it to prevent loss of the job, just loss of the equipment itself. We had a near-tornado like storm this year and lost power for a full day. We apparently had a surge prior to it going out. It fried a VFD. It killed one of several 24volt power supplies driving one of our laser cutters. And it blew a power regulator chip and the fuse in a power supply for our big paper cutter. That was really the scariest because although it wasn't as expensive as some of our newer equipment, it was built by a company that is long since out of business. The power supply is a beast, but fortunately the older circuit boards have large components that are easy to replace. Given the burn spot on the inside, it was apparently a dramatic failure.

Fortunately, the printer, and the lasers were otherwise fine. Because I am good at fixing things, I was able to source the parts and repair everything. But when I went across the street to a commercial printer to cut some of our work while our cutter was down, the woman said they had a machine fail during s storm at a place she used to work and insurance had to buy them a brand new machine. And while that can be good in the end, the downtime we'd face would be significant.

When we know a storm is coming, we shut off all the power disconnects to the big machines. But this one was a surprise.
 

Superior_Adam

New Member
We had our electrician install a surge protector on the panel. I will hit that and protect all circuits. It covers the whole building instead of doing each individual device.
 

netsol

Active Member
I'm not expecting it to prevent loss of the job, just loss of the equipment itself. We had a near-tornado like storm this year and lost power for a full day. We apparently had a surge prior to it going out. It fried a VFD. It killed one of several 24volt power supplies driving one of our laser cutters. And it blew a power regulator chip and the fuse in a power supply for our big paper cutter. That was really the scariest because although it wasn't as expensive as some of our newer equipment, it was built by a company that is long since out of business. The power supply is a beast, but fortunately the older circuit boards have large components that are easy to replace. Given the burn spot on the inside, it was apparently a dramatic failure.

Fortunately, the printer, and the lasers were otherwise fine. Because I am good at fixing things, I was able to source the parts and repair everything. But when I went across the street to a commercial printer to cut some of our work while our cutter was down, the woman said they had a machine fail during s storm at a place she used to work and insurance had to buy them a brand new machine. And while that can be good in the end, the downtime we'd face would be significant.

When we know a storm is coming, we shut off all the power disconnects to the big machines. But this one was a surprise.
i have always been of the opinion that unless you go with a REALLY high quality UPS you do more harm than good.
if i take even a 2200va APC and plug my roland into it. (all heaters off) it still sqeals (the printer, not the UPS) and if i put an oscilloscope on the AC output of the UPS it is truly frightening to see what we are doing to our
electronics when the UPS takes over

AS A RULE i simply use one of these although goatshaver had an issue, with his GFI's trying to use one



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