12Volt-5AMP supply, additional lighting?

I could go and take the power supply, and run it in line with my big multi-meter to figure this out, but what is the actual 5 amp usage of the mpcnc. I’d liked to add some lighting just directly wired up to the power supply (there 12v LED strings that take about half an amp). So I wanted to know how much of a gap I have. If anyone knows that be great!

You should have plenty of room, but a quick check with a multi meter to verify is pretty easy to do with all 3 axis moving at the same time.

I want to say at the very beginning I tried having all three axis moving (spiral vase gcode) while heating up a hot end and it was 3A. But it would be cool to get that double checked.

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I guess I’ll go get one of those clamp multi meter because my big HP one isnt going to work dragging it out there to test this haha.

But I’ll figure it out, thanks for the advice :slight_smile:

I think you should measure this while the motors are NOT moving. I’m relatively sure that steppers are drawing the most power when stalled, followed by the holding state and then followed by moving. As I don’t know how you would measure the stalled current (without the risk of damaging something) I would measure the idle current.

(Some seperate stepper drivers (like the TB6560) even support reducing the current when the motor is not moving so they are not running full throttle all the time.)

The need to be engaged, you will see the power draw is very tiny, moving or not I doubt it will matter. Not moving and not engaged they draw no power.