CNC Bridgeport retrofit

[legendboy]

Figured I would post up some pictures of my retrofit project. Not going to post up huge amounts of detailed commentary, happy to answer questions however.

It started a couple months ago when I found it for sale somewhat locally, couple hours away.

Been wanting a cnc mill for a long time and this thing is exactly what I wanted.

Pic at its last home



Brought it too my work, took enough of the head apart to get it under my garage door. Grabbed a skid from my local machine tool dealer, added eye bolts and strapped it down.



I wussed out and hired riggers to move it





my neighbours think i am crazy

[legendboy]

[legendboy]

Started doing lots of reading on different controls and drives.

Ended up deciding on Granite VSD-XE drives and USBCNC from edingcnc.com

It took me a while to get the drives bench tuned properly but I had some help and finally got it figured out.

[legendboy]

[legendboy]

Enough work for one night

I was not looking forward to cleaning it. Couple saturdays ago my wife had to work so I called grandma to come watch the kiddies so I could have the day to dig in.

7 hours, 10 cans of brake cleaner and 5 pounds of rags later

[legendboy]

I took the old cabinet that housed the drives and had it sandblasted. Had buddy at my work spray it with baked enamel finish.

Making some modifications







I was really hoping to get more done this weekend. I bought a bag of pc case standoff's and screws but as it turns out the screws are too big for the mounting holes on the drives. Hopefully I can find some smaller ones locally tomorrow.

[legendboy]

Snagged this ACS350 on ebay a couple years ago for $100 buy it now.

Finally have a use for it



I had another ABB drive that I used on my lathe. They seem like good units

[legendboy]

Here is a screen shot of my first design of the control interface. I am going send the final flat patterns out and have them laser cut.

I bought a 15" panel mount ELO touch screen on ebay. Came out of a photo booth kiosk.

Also grabbed a really nice panel mount Indukey KS7236 membrane keyboard on ebay for $50. (retail is 550 Sterling!)

Also purchased Intel D525MW atom, Intel solid state HD

I think i want to have the keyboard angled slightly up so this will likely change.

[legendboy]

any tricks to getting the wires in the 3rd pic up to bend to my will. they are also a bit short for what i had planned

they have zero memory

i could strip the outer insulation off as soon as the cables enter the enclosure but the drive manual says bring insulated cable right to the drive.

the wire type is 5 twisted pairs each with their own foil shield and drain wire in moulded cover/insulation

i am not sure if i will run into all sorts of emi issues if i do that, anybody have any insight on tha



oh yea i am going to be posting tons of questions here so please help me out

[macona]

Have the wires lost their flexibility? You could heat them up with a heat gun. Just don't go crazy. Or replace the cable back from the encoders.

As long as you don't have the encoder wires next to power wires, especially the motor ones, you should be fine.

A friend is probably going to buy the granite drives to replace the geckos on his router. Hopefully they work better. Also looking at using one of the kflop controllers.