1987 Bridgeport Production Center Interact 412 to Mach3 Conversion

[JHChoppers]

Hey Pete,

I've been watching your thread on the Zone, it looks like your ready to tap !  You can "rigid tap" with a VFD and Mach, but if you use a floating tap holder then you can tap all day long.  I use this feature ALL the time on this new machine.

As far as the RS485 ModBus, all you need on the PC side is a USB to RS485 dongle (20-30 buck on ebay)  Read/Watch the ModBus videos and use the test feature in Mach to verify you can read/write the registers in your VFD.  Depending on the features your VFD has, you should be able to set RPM, monitor AMPs, Temperature, ect.   

Thanks,

JH

[Matospeter]

Ya mean like this one....
http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-RS232-UART-TTL-RS485-Module-FTDI-FT232BM-BL-Chip-/130400051055?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e5c72df6f



Or like this one.......
http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-RS232-UART-TTL-RS485-Module-FTDI-FT232BM-BL-Chip-/130400051055?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e5c72df6f



I gotta admit I know nothing about this stuff... As I said  I bought the Tormach TTS Tension compression holder and some collets and my spindle now has good torque and reversing so I should be able to accomplish this soon. I guess I will order up the Teco RS485 interface board and then whatever of these two auction you are saying I will need.. thanks for the input... I assume the videos you are talking about are on machsupport.. peace

Pete

[JHChoppers]

I think either one of those will work.  Yes the Mach3 Training Videos    Its hard to explain how to set it up, but once you do it.... you say "man that easy"

Let me know how it works out for you.

JH

[Matospeter]

JH,
   actually I posted two of the same links there, I was trying to show you these two for comparison....

http://cgi.ebay.com/PC-USB-RS232-RS485-UART-TTL-Signal-Converter-/180560121332?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0a38cdf4

Or this one that looks simpler...

http://cgi.ebay.com/RS485-RS-485-DB9-Serial-USB-2-0-Adapter-Converter-/180533603407?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a08a42c4f

  I watched those videos a little and not having the hardware here it is difficult to understand. What it sounds like to me is that Mach can test the device and output words as they call them or data bits in binary and you then know that you are in communication. Do you have to write VB code to get this to work with the spindle control as you show here?  I just want to get it to control FWD/REV/STOP and maybe load metering... the rest would just be bells and whistles really... Let me know which one of these you think would be better for this hardware and I will order it and see what I can figure out on my own. Thanks for your help man.. peace

Pete