I purchased a Bridgeport Boss 5 CNC mill that has a bad controller. We are going to rebuild the variable speed drive, install new power supply, new controllers. We will run this from a PC using MACH3 software. This will be a learning experiance for all of us.
I am going to try to find a good source of components and make them available. We will see what happens.
We loaded Bridgeport Boss mill with a crane the seller had. It went very well.
We only had 2 straps to secure the Brigeport mill. We stopped and bought 2 more. There just was no place to chain the mill
We rolled the mill into place on the machinery we made. (shown on ypur projects page)
I had to make a stand for the computer monitor and keyboard. This will mount where the old control panel was.
We have cleaned, sanded, painted, and installed monitor and stand
Scott Goodman Is helping retrofit this Boss mill. He is preparing to make mounts for the stepper drivers.
All of the old electronics were removed form the contol cabinet. Now new stepper drivers, and power supply have been installed. Optical isolator- breakout board, computer, and wiring yet to be installed
Mach3 needs the limit switches to be normally open. They are wired in series.
We are removing the top spindle limit switch.
Wiring the stepper motors
This is the original stepper motor from the boss mill. I have not been able to get it to function properly. I have bought some items from Hubard Cnc Inc on Ebay. Great people, He has helped me a lot on atempting to get this to work. He just sent a email on potential wiring combination o this. I will try it nest week. I highly recommend Hubard Cnc Inc ebay store.
I decided to use the new stepper motors. I will continue to try to get the original boss motors to run properly. But at this time I just cant get them to work properly. The new ones seem to work fine. I am building adapter plates for the new motors. I had to make new hubs for the drive sprockets also. The shafts are different diameter.
These are the Longs-motor drivers I bought . I have had a rough time getting the original stepper motors to work with the Chinese Longs motor drivers. I did finally get them to work with 1/2 step / 400 pulses a rev. And set at very low current. I tried a very inexpencive full step driver and it functioned great. I am going to try a combination of both until I get a couple new drivers from Hubbard CNC.
The bushings in the belt drive were beat out. I had to install new plastic bushings. There were parts missing , I was able to buy the spring, and bushings. I made some of the small parts needed
11-27-2010
This is the air motor that changes the speed of the spindle. It bypassed so much air it would not change the speeds, It was missing a coupler and a fiber ring at the end of the rotor.
This is the motor reverser assembly. The Bridgeport Has a high and low range. There is no idler gear in the transmission. The motor has to change direction when changing ranges.
This is the small motor that drives the oiler. It has broken teeth on the reduction gearing. it locks up.
01-16-2011 Boss 5 Retrofit continued on CNC retrofit page
