Thursday, October 27, 2011

20000 Page Views

Last week I hit 20000 page views (more than I would have expected), I'm pretty surprised especially considering the very narrow scope of my posts.

Lots of interest from Russia and Poland on many of my projects; apparently I was born on the wrong continent.

Thanks Everyone / dziękuje wszystkim / Спасибо всем

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Powder Coating System MK-II Progress


I have had a few questions and requests for additional documentation regarding my next powder coating machine build.

I have drawn up some proper schematics of the powder coating controller including the subsections for variable HV supply.

The full controller schematic is here:


You'll notice I just specified 28VDC input; its really up to you how to obtain this; you can get cheap switching modules off ebay; laptop power supplies, or you can build your own power supply with a transformer and rectifier (My preference as its most robust option).  I didn't go into it here as its pretty standard stuff

I have also done a schematic and board for just the HV supply; again its just a simple switching power supply which drives the flyback transformer.  There are other popular flyback drivers which use the resonance of the flyback itself to set the frequency, but I have found the timer based designs easiest to build and having the easiest to obtain parts.

Here is the schematic:


And the board layout:


I'm going to have boards made for this driver; If you're interested I'll be selling them for $10 each + $2 shipping (I will just send them as "letter mail").  Let me know via e-mail or comments if you're interested as that will get me motivated to put them up on the store http://www.thegreatgeekery.com/store/


I'm also playing with the idea of moving the flyback (and a HV cascade) onto the gun,  I havn't made too much progress in this area, just a box of parts really...