[chrispy]

Cold,
You are 100% correct!!!!

I only have a days work wiring, and awaiting the new P/S for the steppers. If the P/S was here when it was suppose to be (2 weeks ago) I would have it done by know.

Hindsight being 20/20 I wish I left space for another Gecko controller for the knee axis.


Chris

[Cold Fusion]

You could always sell me that great controller cabinet and build a new, larger one :banana:

[chrispy]

Now way on that Cold. As much as I would like to .... It is my pride and joy for the moment.

Actually I am way overboard on the thing. Seeing that I am waiting so long on the P/S I spent way too much time on the controller box. The CD-ROM and diskette mounted and accessible from the outside of the box, should tell you that much. Even worse I have a fluorescent lamp in the cabinet, controlled by a door switch. So I will have plenty of light in there when I spend the next couple of weeks troubleshooting it.


Besides, I am using steppers....

[chrispy]

Cold,

Afterthought. I would use a raised table on your mill. Just a steel plate with a hole in it to recreate a drill press. Raise it about 2 or 3 inches off the table. Better yet make it fit in the slots for quick install / removal. Giving you a nice 4 HP drill press.

Chris

[rustyolddo]

Rusty,
You are more than welcome to come over here and watch this first timer make a fool of himself.

Chris

Oh I've seen enough first timers do it in the VoTec classes. And I've bailed a few out when they became babbling wrecks after several hours.

You guys have me drooling over the "Real mills". My little mini-mill project is just about done & I'm already dreaming of the real deal. Maybe I can make enough $$ with this toy to upgrade like C.F.. Only problem is, I'm in the boonies and there isn't any 3 phase.

Likewise the heat in the garage is pretty miserable too. I think C.F. & I are in the same heat latitude, me being in FL. I stand over the fan to cope. At night, it's just as bad, can't leave the garage door open because the bugs will throw you out. Dreaming of January when it cools off some

[Cold Fusion]

3 phase service is like 10 grand to have it run to the garage. Why not use a rotary phase converter or vfd to convert your 220v to 3 phase?


It's 95F over here right now. A welcome break would be 85F

[chrispy]

Rusty,
As Cold mentioned, use a phase converter. I am in the boonies too, but on a major street and I am sure there is 3 phase out there. Boonies does not matter that much with three phase really. But you should not worry about having it installed.

Better yet keep an eye out like I did. I started wanting to do a CNC machine. I started out with a G8689 (very small), when it arrived it had some runout so back it goes (Grizzly was great to deal with). I started looking at a $1k Grizzly that was a little more substantial, than it hit me. By the time I put motors, ball screws, etc, on the machine it would cost me more than what I have now and it will still be a benchtop model. Plus if I ever wanted to bail on it and sell it, I would for sure lose some money.

Than I came across the model I have now. Very little use at all as it came from a fabric mill. Honestly I could probably sell the tooling on ebay for more than I paid for it. I am contemplating painting the thing, as it has so little wear on it. I also got the phase rotary phase converter with mine. All told I probably have less into my machine than you do or most people with the mini-mill conversions. Even more so if I include the tooling and phase converter. Glad I was lucky and found a good deal. I more or less just bought the iron, ballscrews and steppers. The rest I junked.

Just do not let the 3 phase or logistics scare ya off. There are great deals to be had as many people are scared off for these reasons. Even better yet, I have a 10HP converter now, opening the door for even more deals on 3 phase machines.


Chris

[rustyolddo]

I'm working my way there. Trust me, getting this far has been a big accomplishment. I had the Grizzly mini-mill long before I got the CNC bug. Built it as an exercise in learning CNC. I've got a good grasp on manual machining, CNC was the next step.

I don't have a pile of money in it, maybe $500 plus the cost of the mill. I consider that the cost of the education. Could have spent nearly that just on a DRO. CNC is far more useful.

I'll be posting some pics on the benchtop forum in the next few days. I reworked my limit switch mountings today, didn't have an 8-32 tap or I'd been finished. But I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I really didn't expect it to have come out this well.

I've got a couple of small money making projects ready for it and if it all works out, I might be able to step up to a real mill and maybe put airconditioning in the garage

Been hand coding thus far. Now that the machine is done, I can learn software.

[Cold Fusion]

I've decided the amc drives are too much for me, and that geckos would be better. They're on ebay here. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE%3AIT&rd=1

[Cold Fusion]

Tomorrow I'm going to get a quick video of the mill doing it's first part. Here is a screenshot of the part in Cad. It's a custom chassis plate for a friend who has been waiting patiently through the entire Retrofit to get some stuff done.

[rustyolddo]

Nice work! Are you going to post some close-up pics of the mill? Motor mountings etc. Didn't take you long to to the retro!

Is the screenshot from OneCNC or Solidworks?

[Cold Fusion]

Sure, although the motor mounts were not my work, but came from the factory. The machine was originally an NC machine with Nema 42 steppers.

[rustyolddo]

Just curious as to how it all boiled down. I'm familiar with the Series 1 and the finned motors and the monster control cabinet on the back. Air operated speed control etc. Now that you have the Geckos and a VFD, the controls probably fit in a shoe box.

Best I can recall from your photos, the machine was missing NEMA 42 servos and the ones you found were bolt on replacements, correct?

[Cold Fusion]

Yep, I got the machine with no electronics at all. I've collected a couple different servo motors, all fairly large. The problem was that some had huge frames, but Nema 34 bolt patterns. I ended up making adaptor plates for the Y and Z axis to convert those holes to the Nema 42 pattern.

[rustyolddo]

Wow! Can't imagine a NEMA 34 motor mounting on a motor to drive a mill that large. I've got NEMA 34's on my mill but they are the standard small form factor, not "Necked Down" motors. Never looked that close at the Bridgeport finned motors to see what their mounting was.

I'm taking notes, hope to convert a full size mill one day.

[Cold Fusion]

I couldn't believe they put 34 holes on this thing either. It's got almost 50lb continuous torque and is over a foot long.

[rustyolddo]

Went back and read the first post, the isn't the #40 spindle taper the same as most VMC's? If so, you lucked up then with your tooling since a year from now when you upgrade to the Fadal or Haas, all your tooling will be ready to go

[chrispy]

Cold / Rusty
Just a fun reference. The computer cabinet on the Series I (assume the same for Series II) that I chucked was 370lbs (including the cabinet itself). (this also converted the AC to DC for the computer and 1/2 of the AC to DC converter for the steppers). The guts of the P/S cabinet that I chucked was about 170lbs, giving a total of about 540lbs of computer and power supplies. I estimate that I put in about 30lbs of computer and P/S.

So in my case 1977 technology = 540lbs,
2005 technology = 30lbs. (including a complete 2.4mhz PC)

Granted my build is in no way the overbuilt industrial type machine that Bridgeport did. Than again it should be better and faster by a couple of fold.

In all fairness and hindsight being 20/20, I would rather do it again like Cold, without the original computer and power supplies, heck motors too, if the price was right. After delivery, I had the Boss 3 controls running for about 30 minutes. Figured it would be a better route to retrofit than try to learn the controls. One thing I wasted a lot of time on was trying to figure out what the Boss 3 was doing. Learned a lot, but not really all that helpful in converting. Think it caused more confusion.

Chris

[Cold Fusion]

The actual taper is the same, but I believe they use Cat40 toolholders. Mine is an NMTB40 system. I don't think I'll be getting a VMC anytime soon When I go to college in two years, I'll have to take a break from the cnc game...

[DieGuy]

The actual taper is the same, but I believe they use Cat40 toolholders. Mine is an NMTB40 system. I don't think I'll be getting a VMC anytime soon When I go to college in two years, I'll have to take a break from the cnc game...

Use it as a side job to pay for college beer!