[sohcpwr]

Hi everyone, this is my first post but ive been lurking the forums for a few years gathering knowledge for an eventual conversion. I recently sold my manual sharp mill i was going to go through all the trouble of converting because I found a boss 5 for what i thought was a great price ($600). It came out of a voccy school so I dont think its had too much time on it. The ways and screws are in excellent condition (see pics.) It came with all the hardware but no control cabinet or electronics at all, which I was ok with. Before going nuts buying stuff, I figured id run my proposed setup by you guys to see if im heading in the right direction. A big thanks to everyone on the forum, everything ive read so far has been super helpful and there seems to be a wealth of people far more knowledgeable than I on here.

Ill start with my wants and uses for the machine: It'll be in my garage for personal use only, i tinker with alot of car and motorcycle stuff and the idea of being able to crank out any part my head can dream up and my hands can drawl in autocad is pure sex to me. One thing i was worried about when giving up my old mill is the limited x travel of the new one, i can already think of one project i wanted to start with that required 20+ inches of travel.

im torn between the c32 and the pmdx BOBs... leaning tword the c32 tho

g203 drives for the factory steppers:
Read alot about the debacle here. I am not concerned at all about rapid speeds, but the 7 amp limit is concerning to me if im deep in a cut on 2 drives. I found a link from someone on here that pointed to drives that went to 150+V at a higher amperage. It doesnt appear as if the C32 will support those, and I really would like to stick to a common setup as i know im gonna have some problems.

Ethernet smooth stepper- I am confused about the whole dual parallel port thing, especially pertaining to the pmdx instructions for their board. From what i gather, if you use the ethernet version, the second parallel port can be used for more I/Os? I also remember hearing the ethernet version of this is the way to go?

The machine has all its limit switches on it- These shouldnt be too difficult to integrate to the new breakout since their not proc switches?

MPG- Since i gave up my manual machine, one of the things thats also bothering me is not having any handwheels for when i want to do manual work. An mpg fixes this for me on everything but the Z. Im thinking of putting a handle on the bottom of the z stepper that faces downward. Being lefthand and facing down will be awkward to say the least, but its there. Easy integration of the MPG is a must, im pretty good with electronics, but have never built anything this complicated.

Power supply- This will obviously depend on what drives i use, ive seen the prebuilt ones for relatively inexpensive so thats the plan there.

Computer- Im torn between putting a single board computer right in the control cabinet, or using an external desktop. Id also really like a touchscreen monitor to use the power feeds and wizzards in mach.


I know that was pretty long winded, If theres stuff im missing or something you would recommend, please chime in. I think i really need more clarification with how the smooth stepper ties in with each breakout board. I get that it takes the workload off the computer and/or board, but how it physically ties in with the whole dual parallel port thing is fuzzy to me. Thanks in advance for your time and any help

[endmill1]

well sohcprw I got the same problem you got I think I paid $800 for mine.

[CNCfun&games]

SOHCPWR,

Before you do anything else, Clean that Machine!!!
Fill any dings,sand it with a rubber block then prime and paint it!
Do one surface at a time if necessary.
Treat it like the magnificent piece of machinery it is!

While you are doing that you can research the electronics you will be happy
with.

I've been living with my drives for over 6 years..... and am happy with my choices!
I selected the Mighty G203V's and they run great, more than sufficient for my needs,
and definitely not under powered as some have suggested.
I built my own power supply and would probably select an ANTEK next time,
just for the convenience.
Any of the major breakout boards will suffice, you don't need to spend a lot of money.
get familiar with running your machine before investing in a smoothstepper.
Save the money for now and buy way covers to protect those beautifully hand scraped & chromed ways.

I have documented my retrofit & will happily post pictures if you think they could help in any way!

Best regards.......

W. Smith, Mission Viejo, CA

[lrgoodger]

sohcpwr and endmill1, where are you guys located? As a retired electrical engineer, I can help with the controls.

I have been retired just over a year and I bought a BOSS 4 in October (I'm ashamed to admit what I paid for mine). It ran on all axes, but I couldn't live with the old DOS system by Centroid that it was running on, so I bought a USB breakout board and got it running on the demo version of Mach3 with an old Windows XP computer I had lying around. It ran like a V8 engine with a rod knocking at certain speeds, so I dug into it and found a bad motor bearing and damaged rotor shaft. I got the shaft fixed and put new bearings in the motor and while I was in there I found a missing key and snap ring on the fixed (lower) spindle varidisc and the bearing was a bit sloppy. I wound up ordering new bearings for the top all the way down to the ball screw. The ball screw and spindle bearings are good (the spindle bearings had been replaced by the last owner). After getting that far in, I decided to check the X and Y axis bearings. The ball screws are good but the X thrust bearing needed replaced (in spite of having zero backlash - it felt really gritty when turning by hand). I have ordered new thrust bearings for both axes. Ways are good with little wear. The table has lots of shallow dings. If I take off 20 thou, it will clean up most of it, but I've been reading on this forum that if you do that, you need to have the ways redone as well. I did read one or two contradictions to that. I am still researching that option. It won't kill me to leave it as is, but it sure would be nice to get it looking good when the rest of the machine is going to look like new. It is currently almost completely disassembled, stripped and ready for paint. Photo attached.

Ron


Attachment 302102

[mactec54]

The table has lots of shallow dings. If I take off 20 thou, it will clean up most of it, but I've been reading on this forum that if you do that, you need to have the ways redone as well. I did read one or two contradictions to that. I am still researching that option. It won't kill me to leave it as is, but it sure would be nice to get it looking good when the rest of the machine is going to look like new.

I have Ground up to .060 off the tables,from the Boss mills and have never needed to re-scrape the bottom, yours being used with some wear, most likely would be a good time to do any scraping, that needs to be done though

The Table has to be set up off the scraped ways under the table, using 6 magnetic transfer blocks, the Table can not be just put on the Grinder without this correct setup, or it will be out and need the ways re-machined and scraped

You also so need a good operator of the Grinder as this can add stress to the table, if not done correctly, then it will not stay parallel to the bottom ways

[Shefron]

Im not here to often but you may find some good info on my conversion thread. Send a PM if you have any questions.

Started out using the stock steppers while I learned Linuxcnc then moved over to AC servo drives. A lot faster movement with the servos but worked fine with the steppers also.
Bridgeport Boss 5 retrofit - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum


Forgot I had a thread on here that I need to update.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bridge...-retrofit.html