[slashmaster]

I think I want to power my mill through either a power strip or surge protector and also want to plug a vacuum cleaner, lighting, and later on the pc and monitor for when I want to do cnc. The strip I have says 15 amps, will I overload this?

[doorknob]

Do you plan to run the vacuum cleaner and mill at the same time?

How many HP is your mill motor rated for? How many HP is your vacuum cleaner motor rated for?

I have not tried this, so I am just guessing, but I would be wary of putting both the mill and vacuum motor loads on the same 15A power strip, especially if you intend to run them at the same time. You may even have issues running only the mill (for example, if it has a 1 HP rated motor). Maybe you could get away with it if your mill was only lightly loaded, but motor startup may be an issue. I'm not sure whether or not the power strip circuit breaker would tolerate the startup surge current of either motor without tripping.

By putting all of those things on one power strip you are flirting with (at least occasionally) exceeding the current rating of the power strip, leading to the annoyance of a tripped breaker. You are probably also going to experience dimmed or flickering lights (depending on the type of lights that you plan to use)

It's a different issue, but I would also be wary of putting the PC on the same power strip as the motor(s) without using a good UPS (that continuously supplies clean power to the PC, rather than one that only supplies power during an outage).

[photomankc]

I have mine on a power strip but I should likely seperate the mill/lathe from the shop vac and compressor. Hard to say without knowing the wattage of your motors but you could easily go over if you run several things at once with a high wattage motor. You can find some 20Amp strips out there so I would do that if you have any intention of running two big motors at once there.

My mill doesn't take much to start running but the 10x22 lathe definately spikes hard when starting up and if the compressor is running at that moment it you will hear about it. I have to keep the compressor off while start the lathe.

I'm going to have seperate circuits added this year for the PC, Mill and Lathe, and one for accessories. Figure better to be safe. The BF-20 and 10x22 both take a lot more juice to run than the old X2 and Drill Press did when I first started.

[TXFred]

My PC, Mill, Gecko, and coolant pump are all on the same power strip. No problems so far.

I plan on going to a UPS in the future. Power in my neighborhood has been flickery as of late, and I don't want to scrap a part because a squirrel got fried on a wire.

A 10 minute reserve on the UPS should be enough to let me get to the mill, bring things to a safe halt, and wait for power to return in the event of a blackout.

Fred

[laszlozoltan]

I had to put my cnc motor on a ups, the lights were getting a bit screwy in my apartment when it was running, the controller is on the ups as well for protection from spikes and power surges and a dual core notebook which helps keep the power requirement lower with battery backup and overall stability. Absolutely no problems even those all my outlets are maxed out here ( pc junkie)

[slashmaster]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'll try it and see what happens.