Re: Bridgeport conversion

>
> In the end I junked the steppers, put the Geckos back on my plasma

and

> converted to servos. A huge improvement!
>
> Les

Were you using the bridgeport with the orignal steppers and
controls. If so how would you compare that system to your current
treadmill setup.

Wally






--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Les Newell <lesnewell@h...>
wrote:

> Hi Robin,
>
> I used Geckos on mine for a while. The motors worked best on 75V

(rewire

> the original main 110V transformer to give 55VAC out) and only

using 2

> of the 4 windings on the motors. I had two main problems with this

setup:

>
> Two Geckos went up in smoke on my Z axis. X and Y had brand new

drives

> which worked fine. I used some quite old Geckos on the Z so there

may

> have been a design change somewhere along the line.
>
> Lost steps. Looking back on it, this may have been a problem with

Mach2

> rather than the drives. As you know M2 pulsing can be a bit uneven

at

> times. As BridgePorts are very heavy, acceleration is critical.
>
> In the end I junked the steppers, put the Geckos back on my plasma

and

> converted to servos. A huge improvement!
>
> Les
>
> rszemeti wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I have a bridgeport Interact series 1 CNC mill, with steppers,

that I

> >want to convert form its ancient "boss 5" cnc control, to

something newer.

> >
> >The question is, should I keep the old stepper drives, or fit

geckos?

> >The drives on the older bridgeports take "phase" rather than step

and

> >direction input, which thankfully EMC is quite capable of providing
> >... so no problems there. The only issue is are Geckos up to the

job

> >(thes motors draw 7.5 amps, thats 3.75A per winding as they are

always

> >driven "two-coil" fullstep with a bipolar drive.
> >
> >Should I stick with the old drives or will geckos give me a
> >performance increase?? The old drives certainly powered the

steppers

> >before, but with their "saturable inductors" .. I wonder how much
> >improvement I'll see with a modern drive? The motors are 8 lead,

so it

> >should be possible to wire them up to work nicely on a gecko ...
> >
> >This must have been doen before .. whats the score??
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.2 - Release Date:

04/03/2005