Bridgeport Series 1 CNC retrofit overview
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- This video is in response to a request from “ford man” a subscriber to my channel. It gives a very informal overview of the main components used to retrofit my Bridgeport Series1 CNC mill from the old Bridgeport BOSS series control, which originally drove large Stepper motors, to a modern control with servo motors.
Although these machines are dinosaurs from a Manufacturing efficiency standpoint, they are a great solution for a hobbyist that does not need an automatic tool changer, or 5 axes to be competitive in a production environment.
Although I used a fair amount of surplus parts for the conversion, there were a good amount of new parts as well. The list of parts that I used in the electronics enclosure can be seen here: drive.google.c...
My original schematic was created in Visio and is long gone from a corrupt Windows file system just before the drawing was finished. If you want to see how the electronics enclosure was laid out, you can see the enclosure layout here, which also includes most of the wiring assignments: drive.google.c... You will need to download this file, and use a .DWG viewer or Autocad to open it.
The control software is Linuxcnc, which sends signals to the Stepper drives from the old parallel printer port: www.linuxcnc.org
The servo drives are Geckodrive G340 from: www.geckodrive....
The Breakout board is from Probotix: www.probotix.co...
All of the other components like relays, connectors, power supplies and terminal strips were sourced individually as surplus, or leftovers from other projects. None of these are critical service related components. Everything in this enclosure is quite modular and replaceable, so it is a pretty easy machine to service, from a control standpoint.
If you have more detailed questions about the retrofit, ask them in the comments and I will answer as best I can.
Thanks for the video. It looks like you did a really fine job on your retrofit.
Great, I have disassembled a series 1 2J Bridgeport I'm in the process of moving to my basement shop. I have everything down there with the exception of, you guessed it the knee and the base. Wish me luck!
Funny you should mention. I just bought a new house, and MY Bridgeport will need to be disassembled in about 3 weeks, rigged and moved again! Fortunately, the new house has an open stairwell to the basement, from the garage, so it will be much easier to get it into its new location. Good luck with your move of the base!
@@MakerCave Thanx, I got the Knee moved now since I posted that comment, thankfully it was uneventful! Look into using a wrecker to move the unit from house to house, I found out the hard way it's so much easier
That's an awesome machine a lot nicer that the one I have ... thanks a lot for the video It was a nice surprise... you were talkin about having to move that thing to your basement I bought some stuff from an estate auction a while back and the old man had a whole machine shop in his basement a lathe couple milling machines a surface grinder and bunches of smaller bench grinders tools and stuff and it all had to go out a door and up a flight of stairs I only bought. A bench grinder and I glad that was all I bought the stuff was cheap and I figured out why when I got there haha I felt sorry for the guys that bought the big machines they were down there taking them apart scratching there're heads trying to figure out how to get them out
That’s incredible
Very Very cool, I did my apprenticeship on a Bridgeport starting in 1977
Excellent! They really were cutting edge machines at the time. American made, introducing a decent mass market CNC controller on top of really good iron for the smaller shops. I have heard a couple of old timers say that they recall that these machines were about $40k new in the late 1970's. Do you recall about what they cost at that time?
@@MakerCave i was 16 and told this is your mill.....lo l5 years on a manual mill teaches you a lot about back lash and you get popeye arms lol
@@MakerCave en24T using my friends w shop
ua-cam.com/video/AUiFNZ9WU0k/v-deo.html
That is a really clean set up you made!
I almost got one of these free. But there was a catch I had to remove it from their basement and go through the backyard and around the house. He said it took him 3 days to disassemble the machine, move the parts and reassemble. I figured it would of taken me a long long day for me to take it apart and carry all the pieces out. Needless to say I didn’t want it that bad.
You missed out, probably
What a great video! Thanks
Very nice work... i do consider to the same... With just Rulon B on surfaces.
Nice job ! Great machine, now.
Thanks TG! It was one of the most satisfying projects that I have done, and it is definitely the center piece of my workshop.
Nice! I’m going to have to do this soon.. well hopefully not the disassembly and hauling down stairs!
MakerCave:
I made a conversion like this one. But I DID NOT change the motors.
Used the Original motors and the Original power supply.
I only changed the MOTOR DRIVES. and I DID use Gecko drives but not these models.
I used the "High voltage Steppers" The spindle, I left that alone since it has an adjustable, pulley-based, variable speed control. (I may decide to change that later. but I haven't seen the need, yet)
I also replaced the CNC controller, using Mach3. All parts I got from ebay........
works Great!! and super powerful w the Original motors and really economical conversion!!
Yes, I had read in the past that many have had very good results using the original steppers. If I had it to do over again, I might just have stuck with the steppers! Steppers make their best torque at very low speeds, which is when the machine cutting forces are high, so they are a good for most work. Any chance that you have anything posted on UA-cam about your machine? Would be great to see it!
I wish someone would give a detailed look at how the Z axis is done.
Holy shiiiiet haha. Brought it down stairs!
Great video, I really liked the Motherboard mounted in the cabinet. I am in the process of a retrofit of a bridgeport cnc, would you have a parts list to publish and or a wiring diagram. I think many of us that are trying to retrofit and keep cost down would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for the video, really nice work.
I just glanced in my computer folder for this project and I found my original parts spreadsheet from early 2012. Its pretty detailed with nearly all my part numbers and costs, except for the surplus items that I had lying around. I put this machine together over a period of about three months, working on it off and on. I will look at dumping this sheet to Google Drive this weekend, and including a link to it in a follow up comment. My original schematic was done in Autocad, to help in physical layout of the enclosure, and actual routing of wires, not just as a simple block diagram, so that is a little harder to follow. I will have to look at it again this weekend to see if there is a simple way to make it readable without having a copy of Autocad.
@@MakerCave Thanks for your willingness to help in such an endeavor. I look forward to the info. I believe AutoCad can be saved as a PDF.
@@grantnotta3428 See if you can download and open these two files. I will also place the links in the video description: drive.google.com/open?id=1D3JUR82iw_a0EVoqCXGd2_KbRXa1LLjK You will only be able to download this one and will have to read it with an Autocad (.DWG) viewer: drive.google.com/file/d/1JYU92qt2g7GuVw6qdjQ20qFmhtAgaRiF/view?usp=sharing
You will be better off using either Autocad or a DWG viewer so you can zoom in to look at all the small detail. I cannot convert it to .PDF until I come up with a better CAD solution, seeing as Dassault Systems discontinued their Linux support for Draftsight a few weeks ago.
@@MakerCave Thanks, I got it, and will start studying.
How is this setup years later? Also, did you do all the wiring and setting up yourself? Thats a damn good job. Once i have fun with my new old series 1, i will probably cnc it just for the heck. Or maybe just buy a cnc machine. eh.
Perfect timing to ask. Yes, I did all the control design and wiring myself. The Bridgeport is two or three days away from being reassembled, and put back in service. I moved into a fantastic new house 2 1/2 years ago, and I have finally gotten to the stage of wiring and setting up my new shop! My new shop area has tripled in size, and I am really looking forward to making parts again. Yes, the Bridgeport was working excellent up until the point that we moved out of our old house. About a year before I moved, I upgraded to a Mesa Electronics FPGA control card, to get me a way from the parallel control, which let me run a modern computer. All of the machine tools will have their own separate room from the rest of the shop, and now I have nice big aisles to have room to move. I may start posting new videos once I get the shop back set up. Thanks for watching!
@@MakerCave Thats awesome, are you telling me the bridgeport was dissasembled for 2 and a half years??! That sucks! i would be itching to set it up again. Thats great to be able to have a large shop. thats my goal. What kind of stuff do you make? Do you take jobs or is it more of a hobby? If you dont mind me asking.
Ill be looking forward to the videos, thanks!
I just saw a message come through my notifications from Jacques Evans, but for some reason it is not showing up in the comments section here. The original message from Jacques is this:
Jacques Evans replied: "MakerCave Hi, interested in doing something similar myself. If you kept the original stepper motors would they need something to convert them to single phase? Thank you"
The stepper motors in the original machine were not really "3-phase." Yes, the incoming power to the machine was originally 3-phase, but the steppers ran off of a separate DC power supply. In a retrofit, you bring single phase power into a Torroid-filter capacitor-bridge rectifier arrangement, to make a DC power supply. This DC power is then fed into a motor drive, like this Gecko stepper drive: www.geckodrive.com/g201x-digital-step-drive.html which takes care of driving the motor. No 3 phase required. If you go to 3:25 in my video, ua-cam.com/video/ou-R44toyUs/v-deo.html You can see the big round Torroid, that is powered by 110v AC. The double blue and double green wires coming out of it are going down into a little square bridge rectifier, just below and to the right of the torroid. The bridge rectifier is similar to this one: www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/ON-Semiconductor-Fairchild/GBPC3504?qs=j%252BucPx4PkG58AqaSQMi2kg%3D%3D&mgh=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAl4WABhAJEiwATUnEF6NVddx3colS1IqF-WpjexgPstFvH29FmsJuiCedbAWS3SzaURHF1RoCtzkQAvD_BwE The Bridge rectifier turns the AC voltage into DC, which is then passed through the big blue filter capacitor, to smooth out the ripples in the voltage. The two terminals that you see on the top of the bridge rectifier provide the DC + and DC - voltage to drive the Gecko stepper drives. This is a pretty quick summary of the DC side of things but it should at least get you moving in the right direction. Thanks for watching!
Amazing and detailed Job!! Thanks for the information...
I'm planning to do a similar upgrade in my Lagun 3 CNC mill. I still have the (3) Anilam/Sem servo motors (MT30M4-59). My machine has the Anilam A10 scales, and they were used in the original setup as a secondary servo feedback loop. My motors have tachometers. I'm curious about three things:
#1- What modifications to your system layout/components will be needed to feed my (3) servo motors? *They are rated 142 max volts @2400RPM/ 30 AMPS @ 3NM Max Torque. They have the original reduction gearing and synchronous belts.
#2- Would you suggest keeping the tachometers or change them for hi-resolution encoders?
#3- Any extra hardware needed to keep the A-10 feedback loop?.
Thank you very much for the help and for the excellent work in your videos.
Great job! I'm just about to buy one of these units... have you got the maintenance manual per chance?
I do have some parts of that manual (soft copy) to which you are welcome.
very good video and maybe you don't have an electric diagram and what kind of servo motors and drive do you use for that machine
Jess Cast,
Would you share the details of your Bridgeport retro fit? What drivers did you use for the steppers?
How did you wire the motors to the drivers?
Some of this info is in the video description. if you go to the Geckodrive website at: www.geckodrive.com/amfile/file/download/file_id/16/product_id/21/ you will be able to download the manual for the G320x drive which shows all the details of how to wire it to a servo motor.
MakerCave: Is there a difference between a home switch and a limit switch? And why use relays for their signals?
A Home switch is used to tell the controller that the machine is in a predefined position after power up. This way the controller knows that it is exactly 11.625 inches away from hitting the left travel limit of the machine. The limit switches are sometimes called "Overtravel" switches. These are the last line of defense against a machine crash. On my machine, I can can be running at my max rapid speed, hit a limit switch, and the drives brake to a stop before anything hits. I used relays to isolate noise from the field wiring. I was getting false limit switch trips once in a while, and I know that it was because of noise in the wiring. Running this signal through the Solid State Relays completely eliminates any possibility of noise from tricking the controller. The relay is very positive. It is either open or closed. Nothing in between.
Hello, does the bridgeport motor serve with a VFD? Doesn't torque decrease at low revolutions?
Yes, torque can fall off at very low speeds, like 15 hertz. Also, the cooling fan is turning very slow when the motor is turned way down with the VFD, so the motor temp can rise because of that. It is best to run above 30 hz when under a lot of load. The Bridgeport motor is not specifically rated as an inverter duty motor, but it does work fine in this application. If I need to slow spindle speed way down when under heavy load, I slow it mechanically with the vari-drive crank. Thanks for watching!
Great project do you have a hard copy / pdf of the step by step procedures? I am old school and do all my work scopes in hard copy
Sorry, I didn't do any kind of procedure for someone else to duplicate this when I built it about 10 years ago. I have all my part numbers logged and some design notes, but this was not a commercial, mass production effort. Just a hobbiest doing a "step and direction" conversion using currently available standard components, to replace very outdated electronics. Thanks!
Hi, can you post some information on how you got it into your basement? Specifically, which parts did you disassemble and how did you carry each part down the stairs? How many people had to help carry each piece?
I erected a derrick in the stairwell, made out of old telephone pole cross members that are about 5" square, if I remember correctly. The uprights sat on the third stair from the bottom, and the horizontal section ran from the top of the ceiling in the stairwell, to just before the back door, which is a straight shot down my stairs. I suspended each piece with two chain hoists, alternating from one to the next to "walk" the components, suspended, above the stairs and down into the basement. Kind of like climbing hand over hand to traverse a set of monkey bars.
I broke the mill into 5 pieces: First I removed the 4 bolts at the front of the head and lifted it free from the ram with an engine crane. Second, I undid the 4 bolts holding the turret and ram to the main base casting. Then I removed the gib for the table, and slid the table off the knee, onto another rolling table that was about the right height. Next I pulled the gib from the knee, and lifted it free from the main casting with the engine crane. Two of us worked on it from 9:00am on a Saturday morning, and I had the mill reassembled and everything cleaned up by about 6:00 that evening. By far the worst part was the main casting. It felt like it was about 1200lbs, just by the way it loaded the crane when lifting it.
I know that this sounds like a lot of work, but it really wasn't that bad. I had a couple of 2' x 3' wooden dollies with heavy duty casters on them to move the parts from the bottom of the stairs into the workshop. Those helped a lot. My engine crane disassembles into individual pieces, so the last step was to break the crane down, and set it up in the basement to reassemble the mill.
I can't really recommend that anyone else do this for liability reasons. A typical move like this would require hiring a rigger that does this all the time. Fortunately the person that helped me was also very experienced in doing heavy lifts and rigging, so we were able to accomplish it safely. For my next go around, I am just going to buy a house that has grade level access to the basement.
Is it easy to do as looking at buying a series 1 and doing this to it.
nice machine. I've completed my retrofit using a hodgepodge bag of parts. I was wondering if you could shed some light on the Bijur oiler. I currently have mine powered when the spindle is on, problem is, how do you know if its working? thanks
Thanks! The easiest way to be 100% sure that your oiler is working is to unhook the outlet line from the oiler, and then see if oil starts to ooze out when the spindle controlled relay is closed. You may want to hook up a temporary extension line to the Bijur outlet, just so it doesn't make a mess.
It is also important to note that the various oil channels and restrictions can become clogged over time, so if you have the opportunity, it is always a good precaution to take apart all the lines and the manifold, and flush them out with solvent to be sure that they are not clogged. This will ensure that the ways and ballscrew nuts are actually receiving the lubricant being sent from the Bijur.
Post some photos or a short video of your machine on your channel if you get a chance. It would be great to see it!
Will do. I send me a private message. i’ve documented my build on Instagram
great job. I just bought a series 1 R2C3 that I have to do everything you did. BTW, What tool holders fit your spindle? I have none for examples. Thanks in advance.
The tool holders are "NMTB 30" sometimes also called Erickson 30 quick change. I believe that this set from Shars is the correct taper, if yours is the same as mine. www.shars.com/nmtb-30-end-mill-tool-holder-set-1
@@MakerCave I really appreciate it. I’m just getting started with this build
Does your spindle use a spanner nut on the bottom?
@@adambohm4367 Yes. The tool holder is retained by the ears on the locking collar, not by a drawbar like is used for R8 holders. Good luck getting your machine up and running!
@@MakerCave thanks again. Btw I saw your 671. I just happen to have an 871 sitting on my bench 😎
@@adambohm4367 Excellent on the 8-71! Although if you look at my video #11 ua-cam.com/video/YUfpN-8FXrA/v-deo.html you will see that the 8-71 case on edge will never fit under a Series 1 for flycutting the ends flat. That is, unless you have a riser ring under the turret, of course. If I remember right, an 8-71 is exactly 1" longer than a 6-71 case, and I only had about 1/4" to spare after making my low profile flycutter.
What resolution or accuracy can you expect from a retrofit machine?
My encoder resolution lets me command moves as small as .0001". My machine is very tight mechanically and If I recall correctly my X ballscrew had backlash of about .0004 so I have actual precision comfortably of .001 on finished parts. Really, machine condition will determine your final machining accuracy.
Do you need a encoder what those stepper motors so that way it knows where it's at.
My motors are actually "Servo" motors, which have an encoder as an integral part of the motor. Yes, the Encoder gives feedback to the drive, and stops the machine if it goes out of position. The original stepper motors, or any stepper for that matter, does not typically have an encoder to feed position back to the drive. For most hobbyists, a stepper is just fine. A stepper should never lose position unless you overload it with very high cutting forces, and lock the rotor (stall the motor) on the stepper motor. Thanks for watching!
@@MakerCave ok. Right now I'm trying to figure out what size pullys to buy for my stepper motors and where to buy them.
do you happen to remember what relays you used for your limit switches?
Yes. They were McMaster Carr part number 8262T11. www.mcmaster.com/8262t11
@@MakerCave Thank you! I've been having trouble tracking the right ones down
I’m putting together a cnc on my series 2 Bridgeport I already have ball screws in X and Y . I bought a bracket kit from a Bridgeport it’s an Anilam bracket kit that has the ballscrew with the quill bracket. My first question is do I find old servo motors and use gecko drives or get new stepper motors from China?
Is your machine a Bridgeport CNC or are you converting a manual machine that already has ballscrews? I have read many accounts of guys using the original Bridgeport steppers with Gecko Servo drives with good results. If you are just a hobbiest, like me, that approach is adequate. Gecko makes stepper drives as well, so if you are starting out with a manual machine, Gecko G201X drives with Chinese steppers would be a good solution. I like steppers because they make the most torque at very low RPM, where the actual cutting loads take place. The only potential drawback of steppers is that if you accidentally impart cutting loads higher than the capacity of the motor (unlikely) then the motor can "miss steps" and the machine will be out of position without the control knowing about it, which will ruin the part being made. With a Servo, the drive will fault right away if you stall the motor, allowing you the possibility of recovering and restarting the program. Servos allow for higher rapid speeds, but again, home shops don't need 150 IPM rapids. I intentionally have my machine limited to slow ramping 60 IPM rapids to give me plenty of time to E-stop the machine if I see a crash coming. I have in fact E-stopped the machine on four different occasions over the years when a rapid motion started and I was going to crash the tool or run out of travel. Conservative rapids make this possible.
MakerCave I have a series 2 manual Bridgeport that has ballscrews added in x and y
@@trialnterror Yes, then if you are just a hobbiest, going with Chinese steppers and Gecko G201X drives will be your simplest solution.
What was the total cost of this Retro fit please ? And would you be available for instructional advice ?
Instructional advice?? Sure! the rate is $200/hr...........
Sorry about the late reply on this, Miles. Busy past few weeks with little time for replies. I just went back to look at my parts spreadsheet from about 7 years ago, and show about $1,200.00 in parts at that time. I know that there were some miscellaneous parts that I did not track on the spreadsheet, so figure about $1,500.00 with some judicious scrounging of used parts!
If you run into questions as you go, you can certainly ask them here, and I will answer as best I can. I still work a pretty demanding full time Corporate job, so I can't commit to personalized help, but will answer what I can. When I was doing my retrofit, I recall getting some really good advice on CNCZone.com, which got me out of a couple of really tight spots. CNCcookbook.com also has some really good info to read through. You would probably get more timely and consistent help on one of those forums, but you are always welcome to post questions here and hopefully subscribers will chime in as well. Thanks for watching!
@@jesscast5122 Ok, how would I contact you ?
@@MakerCave I have a bridgeport boss that was originally textron that was had a retrofit to ah-ha one of the stepper drive boards burned up! The board is a 10amp sd124 powering what I believe is a neam42 stepper. Any ideas on a drive board to power the original steppers and switch over to mach3
Can a probe be added?
Yes, Linuxcnc has a module for touch probes for automatic setting of tool lengths. I have not setup a probe on my machine yet, but may do so this Winter.
Why is that better than what it came with?
In general, the 50 year control was quite obsolete. To load a program, you had to manually punch in G-code which really limited the machines use to only simple programs. There are lots of reasons to update an old Series 1, more reasons than I can fit in a simple reply here.
The update to a modern computer, and modern electronics now means that it is a regular computer, on the network, that can easily manage programs with tens of thousands of lines of G-code. Take a look at the two key websites, linuxcnc.org and geckodrive.com to see details on the software and primary hardware component of the retrofit, and you will discover a lot of really great info.
Also, take a look at some of the videos on Fusion360 ua-cam.com/video/A5bc9c3S12g/v-deo.html starting with this one, and you will see the design part of the process that is now possible with a modern control system. Thanks!
I’m looking at an almost identical machine and I was curious if you would do it again. I guess what I am asking did it turn out how you expected?
Yes, I would absolutely do it again. If I had not gotten such a good price on the short, surplus Servo motors that I used, I would have simplified the conversion by staying with the stock stepper motors. Having a good, rigid 3 axis CNC has allowed me to make parts, and cut shapes that are simply not possible to make manually. Good luck on getting that machine!
Great Video - very nice machine.
I have a similar machine - converted to run Mach3 but still using the original stepper motors. Do you have any idea if there are more of the servo motors available - like those you used?
I have not seen the servos that I used in the surplus markets for about 8 years now. Around 2009, they were all over E-bay and on a couple of other surplus sites. I am sure that someone ran across a large stock of them, and picked them up at auction for cheap, and began selling them retail. When that stock was exhausted, they disappeared from the Surplus markets. However, if you find a shorter servo that is about a NEMA 42 size, you should be able to adapt it to your machine. Thanks for watching!
He joe will you help me
@@remywalet6870
I just saw your request - what can I do to help?
Can.i get i wiering diagram. Best reg
U shuld be selling this boxes with electric. I would Buy it
Sebastion if still interested I am completing a refit simular and have all the electrics boards etc if you still have a need I am giving them away as opposed to scrapping.
@@houstonmurphy136 really appreciate but I live in UK 😊 I don't think I would know what to do with it. Just bough my first bridgeport and getting tools for it, need to learn how to Use it as well