Re: Bridgeport CNC retrofit recommendations wanted.

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, whagaman@s... wrote:

> Bob, I bought a ACRA 9X49" BP clone and retrofitted it with an X,Y
> and quill kit from Elrod Machine and servos and controller from
> Flashcut and am VERY happpy with it.
> I have used Anilam controls, as well as a Haas with fanuc controls
> and Flashcut is soooo much better--I can program the part, post it
> to a file, minimize the controller program, open Flashcut, and run
> the part on the same computer. No floppy's, no DNC, no hassle. It
> seems like a lot of people think that conversational code, canned
> cycles and mirroring in the controller is important, but it is
> usually much quicker to do that stuff in the CAM system: especially
> with the unlimited file size with a Windows-based controller.
> The Elrod hardware is first-rate--Bridgeport used their
> quill system for their OEM machines.

First, thanks everyone for the great information!

I checked out the Flashcut system. Looks pretty good but more
expensive than I had expected. For three axes of CNC with servos, it
comes to about $13K, of which $5K is ballscrews, motor mounts, and
the quill hardware. I checked out the Elrod stuff and I like it.

It seems Flashcut makes a signal generator box interprets the gcode
and produces the drive signals to the servo controller box. The
other piece is the SW. The Flashcut controller + SW + servos is
8K. It's been a while since I looked at it, but I figure it would
cost 2K for the servo amplifiers + power supply, probably 2K for the
servos (NEMA 42). So when you factor in their controller plus a fair
profit, the 8K number certainly doesn't seem unreasonble.

So the cost of their system is about the same as an Anilam 5300
system.

Some questions...

1. Does it make sense to try to piece together a lower cost (than
the Flashcut) 3 axis servo system out of components + SW? For
example, are there 3 axis CNC servo controller PC cards that run
shareware SW?

2. Is the advantage of the Anilam console + canned cycles outweighed
by the fact that the system has a lot more proprietary stuff in it
than say a Flashcut system.

3. Anyone know about the quality of the components in the Flashcut,
Anilam, or Centroid systems.

Thanks again for all of the help!
Bob