I recently purchased a very clean, well maintained, Bridgeport R2E4 with Boss 9 controls. (30 lb. DC servo motors)
One problem, when I throw the switch I get no CRT activity and every light on the control panel comes on and stays on. I have been through the trouble shooting section several time and everything seems to check out ok on the power supply side of things.
My question is does anyone have some suggestions as to what could be problem off the top of thier head. Also, I realize these controls are nearly 20 yrs old. Can anyone steer me in the direction of a PC based controller that I can install and use a laptop to control. Preferably I would like to accomplish this for under $2K.
Well, you might try reseating any socketed chips on the computer board. There should be a board in there with a really big purple chip on it, that's the 68000 CPU. There almost certainly will be some EPROMS (24 or
28-pin chips with paper labels on them) in sockets. Just lift up each end of the chip with a small screwdriver, and then push it back in. Do this with any other chips in sockets, too. If that doesn't work, then you might not want to spend too much more time on it.
What servo amps does it have? Are they the NC-400 model?
Check out ajaxcnc.com They sell Centroid controllers for mills starting at $2151. I installed one on a Lagun 310 that had a Bendix system 10 control. It was money well spent,easy editing and conversational programming. I did the retrofit 2 months ago and have not had any problems. Terry
Aha! So that's what they replaced the LSI-11 (from the BOSS-3 through BOSS-6 line). That sounds like a very good choice for the period.
I don't know whether this is necessary for the BOSS-9 controls, but the BOSS-3 through BOSS-6 required a manual reset (control switch inside the top of the cabinet near where the paper tape reader is sometimes placed). Of course, it could simply have a long time delay from power-on to automatic reset, and thus not need this with the newer machines.
Assuming that the servo amps are functional, what you might be intreseted in looking into is the EMC package (from NIST and found nowadays at "
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") which runs in standard Intel PC hardware, and either handles stepper motors or servos. The servos are handled by a Servos-to-Go card, which I believe is still $888.00 for a full eight-axis board. (There is some discount for fewer axes, but the more the better, as you can use them to control things like a VFD for variable spindle speed, rotary tables, index heads, and other things.
It runs in a modified linux OS (real-time mods to the kernels), and if I were running servos with a Windows OS, I would worry more about what would happen if the OS got the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) during a rapid move. With steppers, no problem, as if the OS crashes, the source of step pulses to the motors stop too, but with servos, the D-A converters would be locked on the last command voltage sent to the servos.
It sounds to me as though you have an excellent machine for that conversion. Though the 68000 computer should be a good one, too, if the hardware is still reliable enough. If it is not, I would suggest mounting the EMC package in a stand-alone rack, with wide braided ground straps bonding it to the frame of the mill, so you no longer have the vibration of cuts transmitted into the controls.
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