CNC Bridgeport with Heidenhein control

Someone is offering me a Bridgeport Series II Interact CNC mill. He says that it worked but the Heidenhein controller is no longer operational. Whether this is true or not, as always is questionable.

The price is $500.

My question is, can this somehow be fixed or a newer control installed. Does this require supernatural qualifications, or do you think that I could do it with some diagnostic and part swapping skills.

Also could I run this as a regular manual mill.

I need the answer ASAP

Thanks

i
Reply to
Ignoramus21067
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Clarification, he says that the monitor is not working. Assuming it is true and so on

i

Reply to
Ignoramus21067

You can't run it as a regular mill due to the ballscrews (no braking action). Repair would range from replacing a monitor (simple), to a full retrofit with EMC2 or Mach3 (complex).

I'd certainly jump on it at that price. If you were not ~900 miles away, I'd offer you a bit more to hold it for me and go get it. I've kept an eye out for a similar deal near me and haven't found one.

Reply to
Pete C.

:

Heidenhein uses an etched bar and optical components to watch the etching. Pretty straight forward and failure proof. We had two different pick-and-place machines made in England that used that system. The oldest was 20+ years and the system had never given a moment's problem. I suspect the owner is correct and the monitor is the problem. Should be pretty easy to find another RS-170 monitor.

Paul

Reply to
co_farmer

Pete and Paul, I agreed to buy this mill and will meet the guy tonight and pay, and get some pieces, pickup to occur in 1-2 weeks. He seems to be good.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus21067

pix are here (tooling was extra)

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Reply to
Ignoramus21067

Iggy,

Refitting CNC machines has become my real hobby. I also make a few bucks on the side consulting on Camsoft refit installs.

$500 is a fair price. The machine is only sutiable for a refit. Don't beat a dead horse trying to make the old control run.

I assume you're just buying on speculation. But, if you're going into the refit biz, email me offline.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Karl, since Heidenhein switched to PC-architecture controls around ten years ago (or offered them as an option), what is the chance that they could supply the necessary bits to convert Iggy's machine into one that's PC-controlled?

Reply to
Ed Huntress

To put this bluntly, if I can convert this mill to something I can control with a (preferably Linux) PC, I will keep this mill.

I do not know even the basics of CNC, so I do not know what interfaces with what and what can be replaced.

Is that a 2 dimensional CNC machine? (I know that it is a dumb idea to ask at this point in the game).

i
Reply to
Ignoramus21067

If you're asking about the two systems that Heidenhein offered as options (one was based on their proprietary controller; the other was based on a "hardened," industrial PC), then the answer is that they both were multi-axis systems. I don't know how many axes they could control, but they both were at least 3-axis.

I spent a half-day with them and wrote about both systems around 8 years ago. Too bad my memory is volatile.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

There should be a parameter sheet that goes with the control. Make sure you get it. IF the battery in the control memory goes dead you have to punch in all the parameters manually to get the control up and running. If its only the monitor bad that is an easy fix.

John

Reply to
john

I'm sure you have run into

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I believe Winston uses emc2. Jon Ellison is very active with that iirc.

They have a forum:

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There is also an email discussion list.

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I'm a lurker, I don't have a machine to cnc YET. I'll likely do one of the Seig X? conversions since a cnc mill is way more interesting to me than a lathe.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

Looks like you're interested in EMC2. Pretty steep learning curve but very capable software. I'm pretty sure this machine has servos with glass encoder scales for position feedback. It may (probably has) have encoders on the motor also. Dual loop control is an advanced subject.

Long story short, don't go in to this thinking its a quick easy job. You'll also spend a fair bit of bucks on servo drivers that work with EMC and run your servos.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Karl, if you can give me a rundown of what I would need/how much time it will take/how much it will cost, it would be greatly appreciated.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus21067

More pictures found

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Reply to
Ignoramus21067

It depends on what is already there. I replaced my Anilam control with EMC2, it closes the loop twice, once between the servo motors and tachometer feedback, the second with the encoder position feedback. I was able to use the original servos, drives, encoders, etc. A $200 board for the PC was able to read the encoders and an additional $69 board converted the PWM output to +/-10V for the servo drive command signal. It took a little time to read through the configuration files but the setup was fairly straight forward. There is a lot of good help available for EMC2 and I don't think you'd have a lot of problem.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

That machine was British made judging by some of the parts.

John

Reply to
John

Looks like a 3 axis mill, the control upgrade isn't too difficult but you have to take it one step at a time. If you want to later you can put an encoder and VFD on the spindle and you can do rigid tapping by synchronizing the up/down feed with the spindle position. And later you could put a motor on a dividing head and do 4 axis milling, lots of possibilities, EMC2 is very configurable.

I remember your programs that you did CNC type motion by hand cranking on a manual mill, you can write similar programs to produce CNC code if you want. Anyway, for CNC the controller tells the motors to make the motions you were doing by hand, but at high speed and in smaller steps.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

:

te:

IS that a Philips screwdriver I see in the collet in the machine?

Reply to
co_farmer

I will be happy with three axis as a start, if I can make it to work. I would love to chat with you on the phone for a few minutes just to get started a bit.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus21067

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