[tfuqua63]

Looking to purchase a Bridgeport 1000 and wanted to know if anyone has had any experience with them and give me some feed back on the good and bad points of the machine it is a late 90's model with DX2 controls I dont know about the DX controls ? Plan to use it for proto typing and small runs mostly Aluminum some stainless
Thanks

[tfuqua63]

Why will no one respond to my post ???????????

[StickShifter]

Do a Google search and you will find a 1000 hits on that topic.

But from personal experience:
The machine a rock solid
The DX-32 control has nice capability but is still not "modern"
The biggest weak link is the PC. Buy a few spare mother boards, power supplies, and hard drives.
Brush up on your DOS commands. The main PC software is a DOS application and will not run on a modern computer or operating system.
They are a lot of machine for the price IMHO.

[tfuqua63]

Do a Google search and you will find a 1000 hits on that topic.

But from personal experience:
The machine a rock solid
The DX-32 control has nice capability but is still not "modern"
The biggest weak link is the PC. Buy a few spare mother boards, power supplies, and hard drives.
Brush up on your DOS commands. The main PC software is a DOS application and will not run on a modern computer or operating system.
They are a lot of machine for the price IMHO.

Stickshifter I thank you for your sharing what you know about that machine. And you did give me some info.I did not know. I have done a number of searches and all that comes up is a machine for sale somewhere or how do I fix this and or that and there was not very much info.here on this site. Lots of post asking but no one responding,so I would guess these have more or less gone by the wayside ?

[StickShifter]

I wouldn't say they have gone by the way side but they are getting old. My VMC800 is a 1997 model year, so that's 19 years old. Think of the changes in electronics and software in that time. Not to mention that the PC software was first released around 1990, if not earlier.

I have two Discovery 308s and the VMC800. The older 308 has the SX-15 controller while the other two machines have the DX-32. So far they have all done everything I have wanted them to do. The potential issue with the DX-32 controller is that it plugs into an ISA slot in the host computer mother board. Try finding a cheap new MB with an ISA slot. I have bought 5 used MBs as spares off ebay to help keep the machines running a long time into the future.

The main way to get a new program from a CAM station into the machine is a 3.5" floppy. Two problems there: 1) The floppy max capacity is 1.44M and 2) No new computers come with floppy drives. I took care of the first issue by installing a CD-ROM drive in the machines and the second issue by using an external USB-floppy drive. But it can be tough even finding good floppy disc now.

One of the things I like most about the machines is that they are actually pretty simple and easy to work on. Plus I have all the documentation which really helps.

[tfuqua63]

Thanks StickShifter that helps a lot sounds like a good machine if you can keep it running.
Sounds Like it would be a good machine to retro fit too.
I think you have convinced me to go ahead and buy the machine it is reasonable is running and comes with some spare parts
not sure what spares it comes with but I think enough to keep it running for a while,