I just posted in the bridgeport forum without reading all the different ones (and there are ALOT!), this topic may be better off here:

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