Solar Powered Bridgeport

It's been 9 months since the last update.  Much has happened in the mean time, most conspicuously being the name change.

What BrainDrain was, is now a legal entity named Novali Group.  Yay!

Our almost 3 year project of running a machine shop from solar power has reached a significant milestone.  We are now able to run our Bridgeport milling machine from our solar power system, updated since the last post.

It is approximately 800 Watts worth of solar panels, attached to a 24 volt battery bank with an approximate capacity of 560 Amp-hours, which can sustain the 1 HP motor on the milling machine for about 10 hours continuously at full charge.

To run the motor, we put together an Arduino based speed controller with an LCD, seen at the bottom of the picture.  Above it is the Mitutoyo digital read out.

The Mitutoyo DRO is made to run off of 110VAC but we wanted to run it off of our battery bank. The AC-DC power supply (110VAC - 5VDC) inside was removed and power was ran, via the black flexible conduit, from the controller box below it.  The controller box has a DC-DC power supply (24VDC - 5VDC) housed inside.

The box itself is a drip proof enclosure and all of the conduit is water tight and oil resistant.  A compromise was made with this USB connector in order to be able to program the Arduino.  There are connectors rated for harsh environments, which may make their way into the next revision. 

For now the controller has basic features and still has room for improvement.  It's time to figure out what to mill.  

Here is a video of the controller in action. Enjoy.