Pleasant (tentative) surprise with Bridgeport Customer Service

Hardinge has always had extra great customer service. My only problem is the parts must be gold plated. That's the only way they could cost that much. I've purchased a few items. It turned out cheaper to buy an entire donor machine. So far, I've been lucky, everything I've robbed from the donor was in good shape.

I'm sure you don't want to buy control parts.

Karl

Karl, I want the schematic to figure out what to do with the control. If I retrofit the mill, I will need to know how to control the spindle contactors, etc. There is also a big row of relays of unknown purpose. One person said they may be limiting relays.

i

That IS a pleasant surprise. Please be sure to let us know wheter you actually receive it.

Not so far. I fI do not get it today, I will call them tomorrow.

i

There was an article or series of articles in the Home Shop Machinist some years ago where the author detailed methods of converting some of the those semi automatic Bridgeports to manual machines. If that's what you have and if you are interested, email me off list and I will try to dig up the articles if you don't already have them.

Pete Stanaitis

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Ignoramus16651 wrote:

Ideally, I would like to run it as a CNC machine with a Linux based control.

Less ideally, I would like to fix the monitor, which is what is supposed to be bad in this machine.

It has handles and dials that would let me use it manually.

i

It is some kind of old EGA monitor, like those found on "IBM PC XT".

i

Don't waste your time. Go nuclear. Then just trace the few wires to find out where they go. I make a small exception if you have a lot of outputs. In this case, close the coil with a hot wire and find out what clicks where. Then ID it. The outputs are normally all together and you can leave these relays in place if you aren't using Opto 22 outs. In my case, I wire all the I/Os to Opto 22 boards - a real good idea to have opto isolation. Your spindle is almost certainly a three phase motor - put a VFD in to run it and get rid of all the reversing contactor baloney.

Karl

Yeah, our old Bridgeport/Romi lathe with EZ-Trak control has an ANCIENT B&W EGA display with 9-pin plug. When it went out, I took it over to my bench and found some solder joints in the HV/horiz. sweep circuit had partially melted and fatigued, and resoldered them. To my surprise, the monitor came back to life and is still working after quite a few years. If you troll the consumer electronic junk swap meets you may be able to find a compatible monitor. Some of the older NEC multi-sync monitors will go down to EGA sweep rates. You ought to put a scope on the H and V sync pins and find out what the actual H sweep rate is, then you can look for a monitor that will work.

My old PC book says the EGA sweep rates were 15.75 - 21.85 KHz, MCGA was

31.5 and the original VGA was also 31.5 KHz.

Jon

I've lost track, but isn't that machine you just bought an Interact? I don't think the complete machine was made by Bridgeport, only the iron. So, Bridgeport/Hardinge won't have info on that. I know the control is Heidenhain, it doesn't seem logical Bridgeport would supply controls that competed with their own BOSS series, but maybe I'm wrong, as the Interact machines DO say "Bridgeport" all over them.

Jon

If you can't fix it or find a replacement, google "scan converters" -- there may be a box you could put between the processor and a new VGA monitor that'd make it all work.

It is three phase. If I can get a manual, I cuold decide intelligently on what to keep and what not to keep. In any case, ilmit switches seem like an essential safety feature.

i

I do not think that monitors have the sweep rate info on them anywhere.

i

Well, there is three subsystems to the mill:

1) Iron 2) Big control cabinet with electromechanical relays and adaptor board that connects to the Heidenhain control 3) Heidenhain control

I am trying to get a manual for 1) and 2). I already have a manual for

3).

So far I got nothing. I called her again and she said that she did not get to it yet.

i

Your chances of getting a useful manual are slim. At least for me, a pile of complex circuit drawings takes more time to deduce than its worth, you're tossing 90 percent of it anyway. Unless you've got a tool changer, there's not much to figure out.

Once your control box is empty and you've pulled the resolvers off the servos (check you may get lucky and have encoders) you'll only have about 30 wires to figure out. Ten of them will be home and limit switches and the common to them. nearly all machines use a special wire color for common just tracing conduit runs will ID these inputs. You'll have three wires to the spindle. Probably a spindle brake, often 120 VAC - note these work backward, power holds them off. Maybe a power oiler and a couple other devices. Your final group will be from your operator panel (which you probably won't use but I do). Again, common is almost always one wire color. I put the rest of the wires on an opto board and start pushing buttons and watching which input lights on the opto board. You'll have to trace the wires from your MPG (manual pulse generator) If you do have encoders, try to find the supplier name and look up the wiring, otherwise white is often five volts common and red or black +5volt. Get a logic probe and start watching which ones flick on when. Encoders have been my most troublesome unit to figure out. You should also have an Estop and Reset button, normally separate.

You will put some of the stuff you took out back in. Your servo power supply should be fine. You can reuse the 5 volt and 24 volt power supplies, but I normally don't. Re use one relay to make into your Estop reset or MCR (master control relay)

I'm sure I missed a couple items, but you get the idea.

Karl

So far I got nothing at all

No tool changer. QC30 tooling with collar.

Why do I need to pull resolvers off?

Definitely a brake. We already ran the spindle. It stops instantly.

My guess is that I will try to replace it with a PC monitor and a keyboard.

Karl, I bought those AMC servo controls that you pointed me to, on ebay. Thanks a lot. I would think I should junk their servo control boards too? How about linear encoders? Those, IIRC, send some kind of a sinewave signal, not square wave. Thanks a lot. My thoughts are somewhat solidifying.

i

obsolete, encoders used today. ...

Linear encoders can be a good thing, but you'll need quadrature output. I've not worked with them and AFAIK, this is an advanced subject. Personally, I'd install USdigital.com differential encoders on the servo motors. Very cost effective.

The servo control boards may have eBay value. People are still trying to run your old control. Junk to you. IIRC, you bought 80 VDC servo drives. You can build a power supply for next to nothing, or maybe re-use this from your old control.

KO, how do I get those encoders, are they a standard item?

OK, maybe I was unclear, I was talking about the linear scales to readout position. Same kind of thing as a DRO.

Do you have a URL handy for those encoders?

I think that I can reuse the transformer from my old control.

i