I have a Bridegport Boss 5 Milling Machine. I installed a conversion kit from Slow Motion Controlls that transplants the CPU from the old 8 bit processor to a PC. It ran great for several years with the ocasional use on my home shop.
Lately, every time I used it it blows out the SCR driver transistors on the Y axis. So every time I went to use it I had to repair it first, sometimes twice and hopefully get thru the job. Then, the next time I would have to repeat the process.
An Expert had me pull the cards and had them checked by a repair shop. They came back OK and I waited several months before I had to use it again. They had me check the motor wiring and stepper coil resistances and for shorts to ground. All OK. Yesterday I hade a real need for the machine and put the cards in and fired things up. Everything ran, for a minute, then the Y axis driver failed. Then the Z axis driver did the same thing. Blew the Z axis fuse too.
I called a Bridgeport repair guy that was supposed to come to repair. He never showed. Went round and round for about 6 months with him but he has yet to show up.
I have really had it.
Anyone care to take a stab at this? It is a shame because I have a good amount of tooling and it does what I want it to do. Hate to see it hauled off to scrap. The machine is mechanically perfect. It came out of a Union R&D shop and never cut anything harder than plastic. It had seldom use. Ways are chrome and perfect. Ball screws are like new.
I am not a CNC Expert. With ocasional use I have to relearn what I forgot and hack my self thru a program.
What could I replace it with? Fix, scrap, trade????
Thanks, Bob in Central Illinois