| How
to Retrofit a Bridgeport Boss |
This Bridgeport Series II mill, originally equipped with
a BOSS 5 control, began experiencing drive problems very common
with aging BOSS systems. Instead of spending $1800 to replace
each of the stepper drives, an AjaxCNC control was the obvious
choice.
This page briefly describes the process of retrofitting your
machine with an AjaxCNC control kit. The entire installation
process took about 16-20 hours to complete. The end result is
a servo-powered CNC machine capable of far more than the original
control could ever do! All for around $5000.
The process below is not just specific to a Bridgeport BOSS,
but applies to any AjaxCNC retrofit.
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Step
1: Remove the Old Control |
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In order to prepare your machine for an AjaxCNC retrofit,
you must first remove all of the old control components. This
consists of the control, motor drivers, and power supply.
If you are retaining your original servo motors, you’ll
want to leave the motor transformer as part of your new power
supply.
The items you will want to keep are the contactors, disconnect,
fuses, limit switches, lube, and coolant. In the case of the
Bridgeport BOSS, you’ll also retain the spindle speed
up/down & brake air solenoids. All of these items can
be connected to and controlled by the AjaxCNC control.
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Step
2: Install the Motion Control Card |
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The first step to building your own CNC is to Plug in the Ajax
CPU10 motion control card into the PC's motherboard PCI
slot and snap/screw in place the PC breakout bracket and connect
a few cable connectors to the board. This takes about 5 minutes.
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Step
3: Install the Hard Drive & Software |
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installing the CPU10 card, you are ready to install the AjaxCNC
software. The PC requirements for an AjaxCNC control can be
found on the Ajax Software page.
The AjaxCNC control software as well as the Linux OS come preinstalled on a flash hard drive. Simply plug the new drive into the primary IDE slot on the motherboard and connect the supplied power connector.
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Step
4: Mount the New AjaxCNC Components |
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For this
Bridgeport Boss retrofit, we have reused the sub-panel from
the original control cabinet. We simply stripped off all the
unwanted components and are now reusing the panel to mount
our new AjaxCNC components. The AjaxCNC installation manual
has a suggested panel layout drawing. It is only a guide for
a typical layout, and you can easily move any component to
an ideal position to accommodate the cabinet you are using.
Mount
the DC3IO drive first, as it is the largest component.
Once the DC3IO board is mounted, it's time to bolt down
a few contactors to the sub-panel. We have added a spindle
motor reversing contactors. We could have reused the reversing
contactors from the old control, but in this case they were
pretty nasty looking, so we decided to install new contactors.
Next to the reversing contactors we installed the E-stop and
the Flood pump contactor (from left to right).
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Step
5: Reinstall Sub-panel into Cabinet |
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Before
bolting the sub-panel back on, we cut a rectangular hole with
a jig saw in the back-facing side of the electrical panel
to give us a way to run all our axis motor cables, limit switch
wires, spindle power, speed up/down/brake, lube pump and flood
pump cables through one hole. This eliminates the need for
multiple holes and strain reliefs. We also cut another rectangular
hole in the back-facing panel for access to the control computer's
floppy/CD drives. We then fabricated a simple latched and
hinged door that covers the hole while the floppy/CD are not
being used.
In this
photo we have just put the PC into place and ran the motor
cables through the new hole in the back of the cabinet.
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Step
6: Hook Up the Components |
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the components are in place, it is time to hook them up! Just
follow the full-size wiring schematic included with your AjaxCNC
kit. Simply connect up the components to the labeled outputs
on the DC3IO. No special tools are required for the job.
The orange
input/output connectors you see in the picture are very convenient
to use. They unplug from the DC3IO and directly accept
wire with no crimp-on connectors necessary. You'll use these
to hook up all the machine accessories to the Servo Drive/ PLC
board.
The two
small green boards to the right of the flood contactor are
extra relay output boards that are included with the Boss
control kit. They are used to control the stock Spindle Speed
UP/DN and Brake air solenoids. A special Boss PLC program
is supplied. All the Bridgeport PLC programming is done for
you.
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Step
7: Mount Display, Keyboard, & Control Pendant |
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We have
retained the stock control console support arm. We didn't
even have to remove it from the machine. For this install
we made a simple steel box to house the color 14" VGA
display and PC keyboard. We also permanently mounted the CNC
machine control pendant to the right of the display.
Alternatively,
we also offer a mounting
arm for the keyboard and monitor. This includes a place
for the pendant.
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Step
8: Ready for Check-Out |
Be sure to inspect each and every connection before powering
up the system for the first time. Once you feel confident
in your work, you are ready to configure the machine.
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Step
9: Configure the New AjaxCNC Control |
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All that's left is to do is power up and set up the machine
configuration. With an AjaxCNC control it's simple to set the
turns ratio (screw pitch and pulley ratios), set the backlash
of the machine (the control will remove unwanted backlash),
set up the travel limits (the control will know the travel limits
of the machine), and tune the servo motors. The digital DC3IO
is self-tuning. It automatically sets all the axis motor parameters
for the best possible machining performance in just a few minutes!
Unlike the competition, our digital servo drives have no trim
pots to adjust.
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Step
10: Start Making Chips! |
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Here is one of the first parts made on this machine with the
new AjaxCNC control. Intercon conversational part programming
(included with all AjaxCNC kits) was used to produce this part
using the extensive canned cycles included in Intercon. The
canned cycles used for this part were: Drill, Drill Repeat,
Chip-Breaking, and Counter-Bore. In addition, the Mirror and
Repeat cycles were used to take advantage of a symmetrical part
therefore reducing programming time and effort. |
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