had a interesting problem tonight. So there I was with my computer on and window ac going and I decided to vacuum the room… Tripped the 15a breaker, no big deal I understand electricity and I had the desktop under heavy load (I put in a 1,300 watt power supply for a reason) so the computer under full load is darn near 12a by its self never mind a ac and vacuum. This has happend in the past when im gaming and the ac is on because that much power heats the room up. So as expected the computer is on a 1500va ups that is ratted at about 800watts so when the breaker trips I close the game or size the window smaller to lessens the draw.
So that was the long explanation to the question.
It would stand to reason that if im lasing I am probably not gaming so the computer may be down at a much lower load but the ac will prolly be on. Should the breaker be tripped that is a power out vs lid pause. What is the power out mid cut is it start all over or easy resume. If easy resume then great but if all over then ill plug it in to the ups… So at 100% fan, speed,laser, filter etc… Does power peak above 700ish watts?
That’s the definition of a laser It takes a lot of power to form the cohesive light beam. There’s also a big voltage step up occurring from the 120vac (or 240) to something in the range of 15-25,000vdc. 20% efficiency isn’t half bad in fact.
800W peak for the Glowforge, 600W peak for the filter. So if you have both, you are looking at 1400W. Assuming a 110Vac, you will draw about ~13Amps peak (7.3Amps without the filter). If you are planning on having an AC on the same circuit, a UPS is probably the way to go.
But if you don’t move any of the pieces, can you just re-run it? (Assuming none of the cut pieces are small, where they would get blown around by the air assist)
You have the time before the Glowforge comes to run a new circuit or switch the 15A for a 20A - though there are considerations and I am not an electrician, even if I did know about your house electric system.
20A, if compatible with your wiring, would not require new holes in the walls or patching or anything and would certainly help your current circuit tripping. Easier than running an additional circuit, be a long way. It might be a better use of the UPS budget to upgrade your house wiring, at least where the Glowforge and computer are.
The solution I used won’t work for everybody; but I have a server and infrastructure man in my house, and he was using a large closet as his office. We decided to move a wall and update wiring. The new office/ Glowforge studio is wired to two 20A circuits. He won’t fill his server rack; but he may run half a dozen machines plus the routers and peripheral electronics, so this made sense for us.
@Multimaker
the original build was a qx6700 over clocked to 3.6ghz with triple 8800ultras in sli and a slew of drives all water cooled with a 3x120mm radiator. The system is now a gtx590 and a 2600k slew of spindle and ssd . So the power demands have come down allot I think I peak at about 800w now.
@areader154
Would love to run a new circuit im in a condo with 100amp service and we are not allowed to run new power
@joe
Bunny candy them cords so cant just run them across the floor to diffrent rooms
My blower on my garden is a very high performance it does 800cfm with 120~ watts so 600w for the air filters seems way off base
It seemed high to me as well for just fans. I have no experience in how much energy it takes to force air through filters, however, particularly what must be fairly fine filters to scrub the glowforge exhaust.
Peak may simply be the max rating of all the components: it’s what I would tell customers no matter what I thought actual draw will be.
Or it could be real, especially if your filter is starting to clog a bit.
I don’t know I have been finding many of the 40w co2 power supply’s are around 3a so that’s 350w for the laser + motors and raspberry and fans so not sure how that turns in 800w and 600w seems pretty obnoxious 120mm dc fans only pull at most a few dozen watts each
Cool yeah the gtx500 series is fairly power hungry, but Nvidia has come a long way since then. I have an x99 i7 5820k with two gtx970’s in sli all overclocked and I don’t think my setup uses more than 600w peak. But it’s been awhile since I checked so I might be misremembering but if anything it’s probably even lower than that…
One other thing to keep in mind. The GF doesnt have to be hard wired to your computer. Since it is WIFI based, you could put it in a different room and on a dif circuit. Thats what going to be happening in my house keep the wife happy. She likes the GF and not my rig
It takes a lot of power to form the cohesive light beam. There’s also a big voltage step up occurring from the 120vac (or 240) to something in the range of 15-25,000vdc. 20% efficiency isn’t half bad in fact.
