thanks for the responses,

did you guys use another way to power the spindle or did you power it with the made or bought psu and transformer?

Can i use a vfd with the supplied spindle on the Bridgeport and do you recomend any vfds?

Would you definately use a smoothstepper for this retrofit or would you do without one?

Also keep in mind that i will be using this machine as a high production machine.  I do not know what to expect I hope it will be as durable as the boss control if not better.

Just curious using a g203 gecko over all the others with the same specs.  Should of I picked a different gecko for my application or are they all the same except 203 has more protection?


Thanks again

thanks for the responses,

did you guys use another way to power the spindle or did you power it with the made or bought psu and transformer?

Not really sure what your asking here as the spindle motor on my BOSS6.1 was at mains voltage so no transformer was used.

Can i use a vfd with the supplied spindle on the Bridgeport and do you recomend any vfds?

Yes if its a 3 phase induction motor you can use a VFD, personally I have found that you will lose a lot of torque when you go below about 20% -30% normal speed with a VFD so I kept the variable sheaves as well and just adjust with a combination of VFD (external pot ) and sheaves. As for VFD afraid I have no recommendations, I have two I have used, a Mitsubishi and a Hitachi and both work well.

Would you definately use a smoothstepper for this retrofit or would you do without one?

Personally I would but probably no huge benefit if your computer can put out a nice clean pulse. The good thing about the SmoothStepper is if in the future you decide you need it there is very little rewiring to do, all you would need is to remove the cables from the parallel ports and plug into the SS.

Just curious using a g203 gecko over all the others with the same specs.  Should of I picked a different gecko for my application or are they all the same except 203 has more protection?

Geckos are about the best stepper drives out, as for the models of Geckos I think they are all basically the same with the exception of the protection as you have said.

Hood

Hey guys,
Few questions, still confused about the power supply

Does anyone know what the specs are for a bridgeport stock stepper p/n 025805, Amp, Volt, inductance ?
Reason for inductance is that the manual for the gecko drives say if you know the inductance you can find the optimal voltage required for the motors.

What did you guys use to heatsink the geckodrives?

Timmy:  just curious why did you pick that power supply with that voltage?
are you original motors above rated above 7Amps ?
Do you have these wired in series or parallel?
Are you using half windings?

I know that some are using the geckos and the stock steppers at 8+ Amps max, how are you guys making sure that the drives do not exceed 7 Amps so they do not destroy them. If you had the drive open at 7Amps wouldn't the steppers want to draw more than the rated amperage of the drives  and burn them up or shut them down?



Just confused and anxious to try to get something going thanks again guys.

I have never found the specs for either the Superior or the Sigma motor but I did come across the specs for a similar stepper and I used these to choose my power supply.

Size 42, 7.1 Phase Current, Inductance 2.0mH, Maximum Voltage of 140V.

On my G212's I limited the current to 6.5A (just to be safe).

For a heatsink, I mounted the Gecko's to a 1/2" aluminum plate and then mounted that plate to the existing BPII door/heatsink. I used heat transfer paste between all surfaces.

I also enabled the AUTO CURRENT REDUCTION on the Gecko's.

My motors are 8-wire and are wired series. My motors never are hot to the touch. I would guess they never get above 105degF and usually stay below 92-95deg.

I was reading roughly 54VDC using the original BP supply and could hear the steppers running "soggy". My rapids were a lot slower than what they should have been. When I decided to install a new supply I wanted something that had enough current for 4 axis (in case I ever got around to setting up a 4th).  I had read on one of these forums that your could get higher rapids by going to a higher voltage supply as long as you didn't go over the motors max voltage or run into a heating issue. With this in mind I decided to go as high as I could but stay below the max voltage the Gecko's could handle. With the amps I needed and the voltage I was going for, that supply was the only one that fit.

I immediately heard the difference with the new supply. I doubled my rapids and my steppers sound much tighter.

I am still working on an easy/clean/cheap method to control spindle speed but for now we do it manually.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info,

I forgot to mention that I have decided to retrofit a boss 5.1 instead of the 6.2. The reason is we had two sold to us 2 weeks after this post was created.
One was in bad shape as far as the old boss 5 control and the other was really good. So i used the bad shape machine, iron was still good.
I hope this doesn't change anything I am assuming that the only difference is the gearing between the two machines and that they used equivalent motors to run both models.

Timmy what was the similiar stepper from, another bridgeport boss or another stepper from a machine.

Thanks for your help
I plan on ordering a psu and transformer tonight, will update

The specs came from an Ametek size 42 stepper from another machine. They won't be identical, but close enough for what I needed.

Timmy are you saying you used the stock sigma or superior motors on your retrofit or you use that other stepper just as a model for your setup since you didn't know the specs.

The Ametek size 42 stepper is not on your machine right.

I have the stock superior steppers installed. 

Hi guys,
Right now i got the machine moving
I used for now
revs per @ 10000
vel @ 40
Accel @ 2

Geckos 203v 76VDC and 7A

using original steppers

I am still playing with parameters to find the best range, any suggestions?

Also I am looking into a vfd, I am currently interested in hitachi x200 or sj200
Can anybody tell me the difference between the two My understanding is x200 has variable torque and the sj200 has constant torque .
I can get the x200 for $202 and the sj200 for $279
Would anyone recommend one over the other
Also would this be able to plug straight into a pmdx-122 board or do i need some add on.
Thanks again expecially hood and timmy, wouldn't been able to do this without your guidance