Thanks Doug, I might contact you in the future.
I checked Rutex. These are $100 a pop.
If all else is OK, maybe these would work OK, and keep the speed up.
Thanks again Doug,
RC

Doug, what went wrong with the Pixie set-up ?
Looks like these would be very similar.
PM if you'd rather.
Thanks again,
RC

From what I saw in reading posts when I was thinking of getting pixies for a retrofit they could be dodgy on some systems. Some people could get them to work no problem but others just couldnt. Think if I remember it depoended on whether your drives were torque or velocity controlled but dont quote me on that LOL

Hood

Thanks Hood,
Was your BPort originally analog ?
What components did you end up with ?
Thanks again,
RC

My Bridgeport was  Series 1 Boss 6.4 so it was originally steppers. I threw everything away and used the steppers geckos etc that I had from the manual Bridgeport that I had converted to CNC.
 There is a big difference in size between a series 1 and series 2 Bridgeport.
 The Beaver mill I am doing at the moment is about the same size as a series 2 Bridgeport (bit sturdier I think but close enough). It had analogue drives but they made a whistle that seemed to be at a frequency that bugged me so I decided to sell them and go with AC Servos and drives.
Hood

Hi All

The Pixies were designed to be used on Torque drive amps. they may of may not work on velocity drives   my Bridgeport had velocity drives. They worked but was not able to get them tuned properly. They ran the program OK but there was no accuracy.

Doug

Hood,
What size, KW / in.lb, motors and drives are typically required for the machine I posted and what size did you use for your Beaver ?
Brett,
Keep me posted on your motor situation.
Thanks

This is just a guess. Would it suffice with a 2:1 reduction belt drive ? 

RC
 I think 1KW with a 2:1 ratio would be  fine.
On the Beaver I have motors that are rated 1.125KW but their torque is very close to yours being 3.39NM continuous and 4000 RPM rated. I am driving them 1:1 as I want the acelleration to be very good.
 On the Y axis I have a bigger motor, not sure if it will be needed or not but its just what came along at the right price. In fact I am notr sure the motors I have will be big enough as I have not done real tests yet but theY do move the axis along nicely so I am hoping they will be fine, if not I have the reduction option although I would like to avoid that
 I am going to be using the SmoothStepper on the mill as with 2000count encoders I will be needing a much higher pulserate than the PP could hope to deliver, at full speed of the motors it will need   a pulserate of 533KHz which is no problem for the SS. Even if I have to gear 2:1 thats only just over 1MHz which is still easy for the SS 


 I have the same style motors/drives on the lathe I did but  bigger, then again its a big lump of a lathe and the saddle, cross slide, turret and toolpost probably weigh about 800Lbs, about half the weight of a series 1 Bridgeport .

Hood

Good info. Hood,
These servo motors w/drives are about $1500 per axis.
Question:
Can you tell at a glance if the Series 1 pictured has steppers, and would changing it over to mach be less complex ? Maybe use Gecko's ?
Just a hobby/light commercial app.
I think I can pick this one up real cheap.
Thanks,
RC

That is a Boss and it has steppers. Some guys have used all the original harware on these and just used a breakout that a guy called HillBilly makes. One drawback to that is the transistors on the BOSS machines are notorious for popping, not hard to replace from what I gather but also the rest of the electrics/electronics are old so I decided against this route. You can use Geckos with the original motors but again I decided against this route also and went with modern steppers.
 One thing to be aware with this machine the travels are small, 11 or so on Y and a really miserly 18 on the X. Also they only have a 30 taper as opposed the 40 on the Series 2. The tooloing for the series 1 is Bristol Erickson QC30 and is not as easy to find as the normal 30 or 40 tooling. Some of the Series 1 have a hole right through the spindle so you could remove the QC nut and use normal 30 tooling with a drawbar but mine doesnt and I think quite a lot dont so you are stuck with the QC. The QC is nice and easy to change but the lack of cheap tooling outweighs this.
 Actually just looked at your series 2 pic, it may also have 30 spindle, cant really make out from the pic.
 If I had as choice of a Series 2  I would go for it over the series 1 but then again maybe the series 1 will be all you need


Hood