Re: Power supply ground

deroseje · Post by **deroseje** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:55 am

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

Gary Olley · Post by **Gary Olley** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:15 am

Attachments :The field ground is your mains supply earth.Sometimes a link is also used between your field ground and gnd terminals. Do you have active neutral and earth wires coming into the robot from your mains.If so connect the green earth wire to the field ground. Then retry your neon. If that doesn t work then add a link from your field ground to the gnd terminal. If you re not sure about working on the mains you should get a qualified electrician to wire it for you. Gary From: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:B9Builders@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 4:26 PM
To: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [B9Builders] Power supply ground
Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRoseNo virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7227 / Virus Database: 4477/11100 - Release Date: 12/02/15

Jeff DeRose · Post by **Jeff DeRose** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:24 am

Thank you Gary. Your advice is always appreciated!

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 2, 2015, at 10:15 PM, "'gary olley' gary_olley@bigpond.com [B9Builders]" wrote:

The field ground is your mains supply earth.Sometimes a link is also used between your field ground and gnd terminals. Do you have active neutral and earth wires coming into the robot from your mains.If so connect the green earth wire to the field ground. Then retry your neon. If that doesn t work then add a link from your field ground to the gnd terminal. If you re not sure about working on the mains you should get a qualified electrician to wire it for you. Gary From: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com [B9Builders@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 4:26 PM
To: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [B9Builders] Power supply ground
Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRoseNo virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7227 / Virus Database: 4477/11100 - Release Date: 12/02/15

Jeff DeRose · Post by **Jeff DeRose** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:01 am

Oh and to answer your question, yes the AC input has the third prong for earth ground.
So, when I attach the green earth wire to the power supply field ground, should I connect the other end to the treads?

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 2, 2015, at 10:15 PM, "'gary olley' gary_olley@bigpond.com [B9Builders]" wrote:

The field ground is your mains supply earth.Sometimes a link is also used between your field ground and gnd terminals. Do you have active neutral and earth wires coming into the robot from your mains.If so connect the green earth wire to the field ground. Then retry your neon. If that doesn t work then add a link from your field ground to the gnd terminal. If you re not sure about working on the mains you should get a qualified electrician to wire it for you. Gary From: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com [B9Builders@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 4:26 PM
To: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [B9Builders] Power supply ground
Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRoseNo virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7227 / Virus Database: 4477/11100 - Release Date: 12/02/15

Gary Olley · Post by **Gary Olley** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:04 am

Attachments :The ground from the ac should go to field ground.If you want to make your B9 pass test and tag then all metal should be earthed. From: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:B9Builders@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 5:31 PM
To: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground Oh and to answer your question, yes the AC input has the third prong for earth ground. So, when I attach the green earth wire to the power supply field ground, should I connect the other end to the treads?

Sent from my iPad
On Dec 2, 2015, at 10:15 PM, "'gary olley' gary_olley@bigpond.com [B9Builders]" wrote:

The field ground is your mains supply earth.Sometimes a link is also used between your field ground and gnd terminals. Do you have active neutral and earth wires coming into the robot from your mains.If so connect the green earth wire to the field ground. Then retry your neon. If that doesn t work then add a link from your field ground to the gnd terminal. If you re not sure about working on the mains you should get a qualified electrician to wire it for you.  Gary From: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com [B9Builders@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 4:26 PM
To: B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [B9Builders] Power supply ground
Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good.   However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRoseNo virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7227 / Virus Database: 4477/11100 - Release Date: 12/02/15

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7227 / Virus Database: 4477/11100 - Release Date: 12/02/15

David Schulpius · Post by **David Schulpius** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:45 pm

You may already know a lot of what I have to say in the following paragraphs. If so please forgive and know I'm writing this also for the newer builders who have little electrical knowledge. Basic electrical theory is really pretty easy to understand and implement. It just takes a little study and dedication to understanding it. There is a ton of free and easy to read and watch stuff on the internet and youtube.
Gary's advices is good and should be followed regardless if it solves your problem or not. Worst case is it doesn't change anything. Best case is your robot does not burn to the ground along with your house if there is a wiring problem or component failure. No lie. Yes I'm trying to get people's attention.
If it does not solve your problem I have a good feeling that what you're experiencing is electronic noise from something deep inside your robot. Usually you can hear it through the speakers. Do you hear a click through the speakers when the neon flashes? You may or may not. In your case and our robots this type of interference travels along the common neutrals of the DC devices connected to your power supply. You could drive yourself crazy trying to find where it's coming from because of the complexity of these B9's and all the different devices working together. One way would be to completely detach one unit at a time to see what is causing the problem and when found place an inline noise filter between that device and the power supply. Another way would be to try to run all your power lines a good distance from your signal and control lines. Sometimes that difficult to do. You may never be able to find where the noise id coming from or it's cause. The way I decided to eliminate this problem was to add a second power supply and run my sound system and neon system from it (these two systems must work together). I did not run any common neutrals between the any of my power supplies on the DC side. This stopped any electronic noise coming through my speakers and stopped any random flashing of my neon.
BTW, on the AC side of power supplys all neutrals and field grounds are naturally connected. You can daisy chain your AC side connections from one PS to the other. Make sure you have properly sized wire. The good news is that amp draw is much lower on the AC side then the DC side of the PS. My unprofessional rule of thumb (which is not exact science, just gut experience) is that my much lower DC voltage (12 & 5 vdc) will pull 3/4 more amps as what is on my mush higher AC feed (120 vac) side of the PS. There are a math equations and tools all over the internet to figure this out if you want to really know what it is. For example I have a 6 amp main fuse coming into my robot on the AC side. I pull 30 or more amps (right now. More in the future) through the AC-DC power converters on their DC side and have never blown that 6 amp main AC fuse. It's important to know what amperage is and how it relates and affects your power circuit designs. I can't stress that enough. Voltage and amperage are not the same.
Hope this helps someone. Dave Schulpius

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:55 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

deroseje · Post by **deroseje** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:38 pm

Thanks to you Dave and Gary for the great advice. Please never feel like you'll insult me with elementary/rudimentary advice. In fact, if you could please incorporate hand puppets into the lesson, I believe I'd better retain the info.....

I checked the AC wiring into the power supply and I was already, indeed, using the 3rd ground input and it was already wired to the FG on the supply. I had merely forgotten that I had. I apologize for shouting out a problem that didn't actually exist. That said, his neon still randomly blinks when it shouldn't. To answer your question Dave, yes, all neon flashes (whether accompanied with a voice file or random flashes without voice files) used to also be accompanied by a hum, but I installed an audio isolator along the line level RCA connection feeding the voice from the CF4 to the amp that actually plays the files through the speaker. This fixed the hum, but did not fix the flashing. I'd assume that this is because the isolator is not incorporated in a place that is "up stream" from the neon trigger signal. Compared to you all, my wiring is relatively simple (like its owner

. In a nutshell:

I'm using all 3 dc outputs (six wires..3 sets of 2 red/black) coming from the powersupply (don't know why, just seemed like the right thing to do). They feed into a 6 prong molex connector which then feeds the 6 wires to the torso from the waist plate.
I then feed these into a terminal bank which separates these feeds to supply power to 3 functions of the robot (1) Lights, (2) motors (currently just his ears) and (3) neon and audio. Again, I broke things up this way only because it made sense to me to have a separate feed (although coming from the same PS) for each of these areas.
Once main power is switched on at the tread, the lights and motors are turned on using two of the programming bay swithes.
The main neon and audio power are not switched in the programming bay. Instead, they are directly powered when I turn on the main switch on his treads. Yet he won t begin speaking until I throw the 3rd bay switch which is connected to the CF4 contact 24.

I hope this gives enough info. Thanks!
From: "David Schulpius dschulpius@wi.rr.com [B9Builders]"
To: "Tobor001@aol.com [B9Builders]"
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:44:38 AM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

You may already know a lot of what I have to say in the following paragraphs. If so please forgive and know I'm writing this also for the newer builders who have little electrical knowledge. Basic electrical theory is really pretty easy to understand and implement. It just takes a little study and dedication to understanding it. There is a ton of free and easy to read and watch stuff on the internet and youtube.
Gary's advices is good and should be followed regardless if it solves your problem or not. Worst case is it doesn't change anything. Best case is your robot does not burn to the ground along with your house if there is a wiring problem or component failure. No lie. Yes I'm trying to get people's attention.
If it does not solve your problem I have a good feeling that what you're experiencing is electronic noise from something deep inside your robot. Usually you can hear it through the speakers. Do you hear a click through the speakers when the neon flashes? You may or may not. In your case and our robots this type of interference travels along the common neutrals of the DC devices connected to your power supply. You could drive yourself crazy trying to find where it's coming from because of the complexity of these B9's and all the different devices working together. One way would be to completely detach one unit at a time to see what is causing the problem and when found place an inline noise filter between that device and the power supply. Another way would be to try to run all your power lines a good distance from your signal and control lines. Sometimes that difficult to do. You may never be able to find where the noise id coming from or it's cause. The way I decided to eliminate this problem was to add a second power supply and run my sound system and neon system from it (these two systems must work together). I did not run any common neutrals between the any of my power supplies on the DC side. This stopped any electronic noise coming through my speakers and stopped any random flashing of my neon.
BTW, on the AC side of power supplys all neutrals and field grounds are naturally connected. You can daisy chain your AC side connections from one PS to the other. Make sure you have properly sized wire. The good news is that amp draw is much lower on the AC side then the DC side of the PS. My unprofessional rule of thumb (which is not exact science, just gut experience) is that my much lower DC voltage (12 & 5 vdc) will pull 3/4 more amps as what is on my mush higher AC feed (120 vac) side of the PS. There are a math equations and tools all over the internet to figure this out if you want to really know what it is. For example I have a 6 amp main fuse coming into my robot on the AC side. I pull 30 or more amps (right now. More in the future) through the AC-DC power converters on their DC side and have never blown that 6 amp main AC fuse. It's important to know what amperage is and how it relates and affects your power circuit designs. I can't stress that enough. Voltage and amperage are not the same.
Hope this helps someone. Dave Schulpius

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:55 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

Bob Darlington · Post by **Bob Darlington** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:42 pm

Any chance it's static? You may want to try installing a 10 meg resistor across the HV terminals (that's 6.4 watts at 8000 volts so size it appropriately).
-Bob

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:38 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Thanks to you Dave and Gary for the great advice. Please never feel like you'll insult me with elementary/rudimentary advice. In fact, if you could please incorporate hand puppets into the lesson, I believe I'd better retain the info..... I checked the AC wiring into the power supply and I was already, indeed, using the 3rd ground input and it was already wired to the FG on the supply. I had merely forgotten that I had. I apologize for shouting out a problem that didn't actually exist. That said, his neon still randomly blinks when it shouldn't. To answer your question Dave, yes, all neon flashes (whether accompanied with a voice file or random flashes without voice files) used to also be accompanied by a hum, but I installed an audio isolator along the line level RCA connection feeding the voice from the CF4 to the amp that actually plays the files through the speaker. This fixed the hum, but did not fix the flashing. I'd assume that this is because the isolator is not incorporated in a place that is "up stream" from the neon trigger signal. Compared to you all, my wiring is relatively simple (like its owner . In a nutshell:

I'm using all 3 dc outputs (six wires..3 sets of 2 red/black) coming from the powersupply (don't know why, just seemed like the right thing to do). They feed into a 6 prong molex connector which then feeds the 6 wires to the torso from the waist plate.

I then feed these into a terminal bank which separates these feeds to supply power to 3 functions of the robot (1) Lights, (2) motors (currently just his ears) and (3) neon and audio. Again, I broke things up this way only because it made sense to me to have a separate feed (although coming from the same PS) for each of these areas.

Once main power is switched on at the tread, the lights and motors are turned on using two of the programming bay swithes.

The main neon and audio power are not switched in the programming bay. Instead, they are directly powered when I turn on the main switch on his treads. Yet he won t begin speaking until I throw the 3rd bay switch which is connected to the CF4 contact 24.
I hope this gives enough info. Thanks!
From: "David Schulpius dschulpius@wi.rr.com [B9Builders]"
To: "Tobor001@aol.com [B9Builders]"
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:44:38 AM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

You may already know a lot of what I have to say in the following paragraphs. If so please forgive and know I'm writing this also for the newer builders who have little electrical knowledge. Basic electrical theory is really pretty easy to understand and implement. It just takes a little study and dedication to understanding it. There is a ton of free and easy to read and watch stuff on the internet and youtube.
Gary's advices is good and should be followed regardless if it solves your problem or not. Worst case is it doesn't change anything. Best case is your robot does not burn to the ground along with your house if there is a wiring problem or component failure. No lie. Yes I'm trying to get people's attention.
If it does not solve your problem I have a good feeling that what you're experiencing is electronic noise from something deep inside your robot. Usually you can hear it through the speakers. Do you hear a click through the speakers when the neon flashes? You may or may not. In your case and our robots this type of interference travels along the common neutrals of the DC devices connected to your power supply. You could drive yourself crazy trying to find where it's coming from because of the complexity of these B9's and all the different devices working together. One way would be to completely detach one unit at a time to see what is causing the problem and when found place an inline noise filter between that device and the power supply. Another way would be to try to run all your power lines a good distance from your signal and control lines. Sometimes that difficult to do. You may never be able to find where the noise id coming from or it's cause. The way I decided to eliminate this problem was to add a second power supply and run my sound system and neon system from it (these two systems must work together). I did not run any common neutrals between the any of my power supplies on the DC side. This stopped any electronic noise coming through my speakers and stopped any random flashing of my neon.
BTW, on the AC side of power supplys all neutrals and field grounds are naturally connected. You can daisy chain your AC side connections from one PS to the other. Make sure you have properly sized wire. The good news is that amp draw is much lower on the AC side then the DC side of the PS. My unprofessional rule of thumb (which is not exact science, just gut experience) is that my much lower DC voltage (12 & 5 vdc) will pull 3/4 more amps as what is on my mush higher AC feed (120 vac) side of the PS. There are a math equations and tools all over the internet to figure this out if you want to really know what it is. For example I have a 6 amp main fuse coming into my robot on the AC side. I pull 30 or more amps (right now. More in the future) through the AC-DC power converters on their DC side and have never blown that 6 amp main AC fuse. It's important to know what amperage is and how it relates and affects your power circuit designs. I can't stress that enough. Voltage and amperage are not the same.
Hope this helps someone. Dave Schulpius
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:55 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

deroseje · Post by **deroseje** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:01 pm

Attachments :Thanks Bob, but please remember who you're talking to. I'll need a bit of clarity.

HV = High voltage, right? So would you be referring to the cables coming from the neon transformer and connected to the neon?

When you say "Install across", what is that process?

Thanks again!

Jeff-

Sent from my iPad

------ Original Message ------

From: Bob Darlington rdarlington@gmail.com [B9Builders]
To: B9 Robots Builders Club
Sent: December 3, 2015 at 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

Any chance it's static? You may want to try installing a 10 meg resistor across the HV terminals (that's 6.4 watts at 8000 volts so size it appropriately).
-Bob
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:38 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Thanks to you Dave and Gary for the great advice. Please never feel like you'll insult me with elementary/rudimentary advice. In fact, if you could please incorporate hand puppets into the lesson, I believe I'd better retain the info..... I checked the AC wiring into the power supply and I was already, indeed, using the 3rd ground input and it was already wired to the FG on the supply. I had merely forgotten that I had. I apologize for shouting out a problem that didn't actually exist. That said, his neon still randomly blinks when it shouldn't. To answer your question Dave, yes, all neon flashes (whether accompanied with a voice file or random flashes without voice files) used to also be accompanied by a hum, but I installed an audio isolator along the line level RCA connection feeding the voice from the CF4 to the amp that actually plays the files through the speaker. This fixed the hum, but did not fix the flashing. I'd assume that this is because the isolator is not incorporated in a place that is "up stream" from the neon trigger signal. Compared to you all, my wiring is relatively simple (like its owner . In a nutshell:

I'm using all 3 dc outputs (six wires..3 sets of 2 red/black) coming from the powersupply (don't know why, just seemed like the right thing to do). They feed into a 6 prong molex connector which then feeds the 6 wires to the torso from the waist plate.

I then feed these into a terminal bank which separates these feeds to supply power to 3 functions of the robot (1) Lights, (2) motors (currently just his ears) and (3) neon and audio. Again, I broke things up this way only because it made sense to me to have a separate feed (although coming from the same PS) for each of these areas.

Once main power is switched on at the tread, the lights and motors are turned on using two of the programming bay swithes.

The main neon and audio power are not switched in the programming bay. Instead, they are directly powered when I turn on the main switch on his treads. Yet he won’t begin speaking until I throw the 3rd bay switch which is connected to the CF4 contact 24.
I hope this gives enough info. Thanks!
From: "David Schulpius dschulpius@wi.rr.com [B9Builders]"
To: "Tobor001@aol.com [B9Builders]"
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:44:38 AM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

You may already know a lot of what I have to say in the following paragraphs. If so please forgive and know I'm writing this also for the newer builders who have little electrical knowledge. Basic electrical theory is really pretty easy to understand and implement. It just takes a little study and dedication to understanding it. There is a ton of free and easy to read and watch stuff on the internet and youtube.
Gary's advices is good and should be followed regardless if it solves your problem or not. Worst case is it doesn't change anything. Best case is your robot does not burn to the ground along with your house if there is a wiring problem or component failure. No lie. Yes I'm trying to get people's attention.
If it does not solve your problem I have a good feeling that what you're experiencing is electronic noise from something deep inside your robot. Usually you can hear it through the speakers. Do you hear a click through the speakers when the neon flashes? You may or may not. In your case and our robots this type of interference travels along the common neutrals of the DC devices connected to your power supply. You could drive yourself crazy trying to find where it's coming from because of the complexity of these B9's and all the different devices working together. One way would be to completely detach one unit at a time to see what is causing the problem and when found place an inline noise filter between that device and the power supply. Another way would be to try to run all your power lines a good distance from your signal and control lines. Sometimes that difficult to do. You may never be able to find where the noise id coming from or it's cause. The way I decided to eliminate this problem was to add a second power supply and run my sound system and neon system from it (these two systems must work together). I did not run any common neutrals between the any of my power supplies on the DC side. This stopped any electronic noise coming through my speakers and stopped any random flashing of my neon.
BTW, on the AC side of power supplys all neutrals and field grounds are naturally connected. You can daisy chain your AC side connections from one PS to the other. Make sure you have properly sized wire. The good news is that amp draw is much lower on the AC side then the DC side of the PS. My unprofessional rule of thumb (which is not exact science, just gut experience) is that my much lower DC voltage (12 & 5 vdc) will pull 3/4 more amps as what is on my mush higher AC feed (120 vac) side of the PS. There are a math equations and tools all over the internet to figure this out if you want to really know what it is. For example I have a 6 amp main fuse coming into my robot on the AC side. I pull 30 or more amps (right now. More in the future) through the AC-DC power converters on their DC side and have never blown that 6 amp main AC fuse. It's important to know what amperage is and how it relates and affects your power circuit designs. I can't stress that enough. Voltage and amperage are not the same.
Hope this helps someone. Dave Schulpius
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:55 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

Bob Darlington · Post by **Bob Darlington** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:20 pm

HV = High Voltage, yah.
I think the output of those tec22 modules is about 8000 volts, but don't remember for sure. And by across, I mean right across the two wires going to the neon, or even better from one to ground. If you use a tiny 1/4 watt resistor, it will lead a brief but spectacular existence before exploding violently and hurting you or the glass. We're looking at 5-10 watts here at this guessed voltage and I'm sure that little transformer will melt down trying to supply that much power.
Perhaps we best explore other options before this one!
-Bob

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 3:01 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Thanks Bob, but please remember who you're talking to. I'll need a bit of clarity.

HV = High voltage, right? So would you be referring to the cables coming from the neon transformer and connected to the neon?

When you say "Install across", what is that process?

Thanks again!

Jeff-

Sent from my iPad
------ Original Message ------

From: Bob Darlington rdarlington@gmail.com [B9Builders]
To: B9 Robots Builders Club
Sent: December 3, 2015 at 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

Any chance it's static? You may want to try installing a 10 meg resistor across the HV terminals (that's 6.4 watts at 8000 volts so size it appropriately).
-Bob
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:38 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Thanks to you Dave and Gary for the great advice. Please never feel like you'll insult me with elementary/rudimentary advice. In fact, if you could please incorporate hand puppets into the lesson, I believe I'd better retain the info..... I checked the AC wiring into the power supply and I was already, indeed, using the 3rd ground input and it was already wired to the FG on the supply. I had merely forgotten that I had. I apologize for shouting out a problem that didn't actually exist. That said, his neon still randomly blinks when it shouldn't. To answer your question Dave, yes, all neon flashes (whether accompanied with a voice file or random flashes without voice files) used to also be accompanied by a hum, but I installed an audio isolator along the line level RCA connection feeding the voice from the CF4 to the amp that actually plays the files through the speaker. This fixed the hum, but did not fix the flashing. I'd assume that this is because the isolator is not incorporated in a place that is "up stream" from the neon trigger signal. Compared to you all, my wiring is relatively simple (like its owner . In a nutshell:

I'm using all 3 dc outputs (six wires..3 sets of 2 red/black) coming from the powersupply (don't know why, just seemed like the right thing to do). They feed into a 6 prong molex connector which then feeds the 6 wires to the torso from the waist plate.

I then feed these into a terminal bank which separates these feeds to supply power to 3 functions of the robot (1) Lights, (2) motors (currently just his ears) and (3) neon and audio. Again, I broke things up this way only because it made sense to me to have a separate feed (although coming from the same PS) for each of these areas.

Once main power is switched on at the tread, the lights and motors are turned on using two of the programming bay swithes.

The main neon and audio power are not switched in the programming bay. Instead, they are directly powered when I turn on the main switch on his treads. Yet he won t begin speaking until I throw the 3rd bay switch which is connected to the CF4 contact 24.
I hope this gives enough info. Thanks!
From: "David Schulpius dschulpius@wi.rr.com [B9Builders]"
To: "Tobor001@aol.com [B9Builders]"
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:44:38 AM
Subject: Re: [B9Builders] Power supply ground

You may already know a lot of what I have to say in the following paragraphs. If so please forgive and know I'm writing this also for the newer builders who have little electrical knowledge. Basic electrical theory is really pretty easy to understand and implement. It just takes a little study and dedication to understanding it. There is a ton of free and easy to read and watch stuff on the internet and youtube.
Gary's advices is good and should be followed regardless if it solves your problem or not. Worst case is it doesn't change anything. Best case is your robot does not burn to the ground along with your house if there is a wiring problem or component failure. No lie. Yes I'm trying to get people's attention.
If it does not solve your problem I have a good feeling that what you're experiencing is electronic noise from something deep inside your robot. Usually you can hear it through the speakers. Do you hear a click through the speakers when the neon flashes? You may or may not. In your case and our robots this type of interference travels along the common neutrals of the DC devices connected to your power supply. You could drive yourself crazy trying to find where it's coming from because of the complexity of these B9's and all the different devices working together. One way would be to completely detach one unit at a time to see what is causing the problem and when found place an inline noise filter between that device and the power supply. Another way would be to try to run all your power lines a good distance from your signal and control lines. Sometimes that difficult to do. You may never be able to find where the noise id coming from or it's cause. The way I decided to eliminate this problem was to add a second power supply and run my sound system and neon system from it (these two systems must work together). I did not run any common neutrals between the any of my power supplies on the DC side. This stopped any electronic noise coming through my speakers and stopped any random flashing of my neon.
BTW, on the AC side of power supplys all neutrals and field grounds are naturally connected. You can daisy chain your AC side connections from one PS to the other. Make sure you have properly sized wire. The good news is that amp draw is much lower on the AC side then the DC side of the PS. My unprofessional rule of thumb (which is not exact science, just gut experience) is that my much lower DC voltage (12 & 5 vdc) will pull 3/4 more amps as what is on my mush higher AC feed (120 vac) side of the PS. There are a math equations and tools all over the internet to figure this out if you want to really know what it is. For example I have a 6 amp main fuse coming into my robot on the AC side. I pull 30 or more amps (right now. More in the future) through the AC-DC power converters on their DC side and have never blown that 6 amp main AC fuse. It's important to know what amperage is and how it relates and affects your power circuit designs. I can't stress that enough. Voltage and amperage are not the same.
Hope this helps someone. Dave Schulpius
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:55 PM, jeff.derose@comcast.net [B9Builders] wrote:

Hi y'all,

Last we viewed Jeff's world of inept B9 building, I had finally worked through most of my neon bugs. He's been rambling away, entertaining guests and generally driving my wife crazy. So far, so good. However, I'm still dealing with sporadic neon flashes between his comments. I now have another thought about its cause, but wanted to bounce it off you before I go through the effort of taking the big guy apart foe the jillionth time.

I'm using the Meanwell 320-12 power supply to power everything in my build. Yet I just realized that I have not done anything with the FG GROUND connection that sits next to the AC/L and AC/N inputs. Could this be causing the random neon flashing when no voice files are playing? Should I have connected this to the steal treads or some other place?

Sign me Jeff (how have I not electrocuted myself?) DeRose

Wilsons Sandbox