[Sparky_NY]

A update to this thread which I started. I moved south about 6 years ago and sold the V2e3 because it was not practical to move along with all my other stuff. It is being used in a small shop and continues to work well.

A couple years after arriving here in the south, I have built a large pole barn building and got a Boss 3 which is very similar to the V2e3, it has the tilt/nod varispeed head. It was originally a stepper machine but had no control or motors when I got it. I put on servos the same used on other bridgeport factory machines and used AMC BE25A20AC drives this time. I also went with linuxcnc rather than mach3. This machine is in service and I am very pleased with it. Linuxcnc is far superior to Mach3 as is the hardware used with it. I used mesa 7i77 and 6i25 boards for the control. The retrofit was considerably less expensive than the V2e3 also.

[mongoose]

A update to this thread which I started. I moved south about 6 years ago and sold the V2e3 because it was not practical to move along with all my other stuff. It is being used in a small shop and continues to work well.

A couple years after arriving here in the south, I have built a large pole barn building and got a Boss 3 which is very similar to the V2e3, it has the tilt/nod varispeed head. It was originally a stepper machine but had no control or motors when I got it. I put on servos the same used on other bridgeport factory machines and used AMC BE25A20AC drives this time. I also went with linuxcnc rather than mach3. This machine is in service and I am very pleased with it. Linuxcnc is far superior to Mach3 as is the hardware used with it. I used mesa 7i77 and 6i25 boards for the control. The retrofit was considerably less expensive than the V2e3 also.

Sparky,

Glad to see you are still at it!

I told my wife if she wanted to retire out of state my shop would have to be moved... Personally i think it would be easier to have my equipment moved than spend the time finding it all again! I have a pair of manual bridgeports, but have wanted to jump onto CNC for awhile. the V2E3 i picked up was already stripped of its controls, head, and servos and was converted to vari speed head and manual handles. ( although it still has the ballscrews ) The ways are in like new condition so i dont think it had much use. After i agreed to buy it the P.O. threw in the servo motors and brackets ( although im missing some of the pulleys / hardware, and gave me the lower half of the original head ( motorized quill ) so im looking to get a junk varispeed or j head for the top half. As far as the CNC end Im trying to do my homework and ATM i am leaning toward LinuxCNC and am thinking of clearpath servos as they have the driver boards built in. i will definitely check out the mesa boards ..

Joe

[Sparky_NY]

Sparky,

Glad to see you are still at it!

I told my wife if she wanted to retire out of state my shop would have to be moved... Personally i think it would be easier to have my equipment moved than spend the time finding it all again! I have a pair of manual bridgeports, but have wanted to jump onto CNC for awhile. the V2E3 i picked up was already stripped of its controls, head, and servos and was converted to vari speed head and manual handles. ( although it still has the ballscrews ) The ways are in like new condition so i dont think it had much use. After i agreed to buy it the P.O. threw in the servo motors and brackets ( although im missing some of the pulleys / hardware, and gave me the lower half of the original head ( motorized quill ) so im looking to get a junk varispeed or j head for the top half. As far as the CNC end Im trying to do my homework and ATM i am leaning toward LinuxCNC and am thinking of clearpath servos as they have the driver boards built in. i will definitely check out the mesa boards ..

Joe

My most recent upgrade was to get rid of the varispeed pulleys and belt and switch to a fixed ratio poly vee belt drive. I had the motor armature balanced and was quite surprised at how much it was out of balance. The motor fan blade was replaced with a external muffin fan for improved cooling at low speeds. I now have a 6500 rpm top speed and extreme smoothness. Its also Soooooo quiet now ! Its a easy upgrade and a huge improvement. At the same time, I configured closed loop spindle speed control in linuxcnc which works fantastic !

[mongoose]

My most recent upgrade was to get rid of the varispeed pulleys and belt and switch to a fixed ratio poly vee belt drive. I had the motor armature balanced and was quite surprised at how much it was out of balance. The motor fan blade was replaced with a external muffin fan for improved cooling at low speeds. I now have a 6500 rpm top speed and extreme smoothness. Its also Soooooo quiet now ! Its a easy upgrade and a huge improvement. At the same time, I configured closed loop spindle speed control in linuxcnc which works fantastic !

Sparky, looked at those mesa boards... very confusing VS standard parallel board setup.. and 10 times the cost !! did you have to change all the pulleys to make it single speed.. and im guessing you are using a VFD for speed control... do you have an loss of torque at low speed ?

Joe

- - - Updated - - -

would love some pics of the new machine and setup !

[Sparky_NY]

Sparky, looked at those mesa boards... very confusing VS standard parallel board setup.. and 10 times the cost !! did you have to change all the pulleys to make it single speed.. and im guessing you are using a VFD for speed control... do you have an loss of torque at low speed ?

Joe

- - - Updated - - -



would love some pics of the new machine and setup !

Yes there is a loss of torque with low speed. All motors will loose torque is ran below their rated rpm with a vfd. That said, its not anything really noticeable I would say. Its hard to use the torque available with a bridgeport anyways due to rigidity limitations. The gain at the high rpm range IS useful though, with carbide tooling the optimum speed is often 5000 rpm or more for the common sizes we would use. Run tiny endmills 1/8 and under becomes VERY difficult if you can't hit 5000rpm or preferably more.

Linuxcnc with mesa boards is a LOT different than mach setups we are used to. On a mach setup a breakout board at a minimum is needed, two parallel ports with breakout boards for something like the bridgeport with servos. That STILL won't work for the bridgeport because parallel ports cannot produces pulses fast enough for a servo machine with encoders. You would need something like the smoothstepper board to accommodate the required speeds. CNC4PC lists their package of a smoothstepper with two breakout boards for $383. The mesa card setup costs about $250 and has MANY more I/O connections available with more flexibility.

Don't forget, Linuxcnc is a true closed loop controller, to use this feature it needs encoder information fed back into the controller. Mach is open loop, servo setups have the encoder connected to the drive. It is also why Linuxcnc can use inexpensive commercial servo drives rather than the step/dir drives mach uses.

Will get you some pics soon.

[mongoose]

Sparky, took another look at the mesa boards.. their website is a lil confusing.. once i figured out which ones i really needed ( by watching youtube videos and reading the forums ) it became clear... i will probably get one of their plug and go kits that has the matched pc card and breakout board... still considering the clearpath servos as they have the drivers built in .. then all i will need is the powersupply..

Joe

[Sparky_NY]

Sparky, took another look at the mesa boards.. their website is a lil confusing.. once i figured out which ones i really needed ( by watching youtube videos and reading the forums ) it became clear... i will probably get one of their plug and go kits that has the matched pc card and breakout board... still considering the clearpath servos as they have the drivers built in .. then all i will need is the powersupply..

Joe

Those clearpath servo's don't shake me up. It appears the control loops are totally within the motor/drive with step/dir input, that means linuxcnc will not operate as a closed loop control. All your high end machines are closed loop controls for good reason. Hobby class machines more commonly open loop control. That said, its a personal choice, they will of course work. I would suggest you join and look around the linuxcnc forum, maybe inquire about the clearpath servos even.

That V2E3 I did had dugong drives, made by cncdrives. They were step/dir drives and mach3 was a open loop controller. It worked well BUT now days, after using analog 0-10V drives and linuxcnc for closed loop control, I would never remotely consider going back to the other method. I have done several machines since that V2E3.

Note: linuxcnc can operate in open loop mode but its not the preferred mode.