[NEATman]

Crazyman-
Trust me, if you really want to go CNC, you should get an old CNC and update it. The one that I purchased was an absoloute STEAL!! The machine is a 1993 3 axis Series 1 bridgeport, complete with flood coolant, automatic oiler, powerdrawbar tool changer, and imitation kurt vise. I am looking for NMTB-30 tooling for the machine, as it did not come with any. I bought it off a friend who had gotten the machine for FREE. He was scouting machine shops in our area to qualify them to make parts for our company, and commented on this machine in the corner of the shop, that was obviously not in use. The shop owner made an off hand comment that "it's yours if you get it out of here", and my friend had the riggers there two days later. All I paid for it was $600, to cover my friend's rigging charge. Plus, I helped him move his other two bridgeports and a large lathe to his new shop.

At this point, all I need to do is buy tooling, get software, and drives. Infact, all of the drives in the machine are fully functional, but do not accept step and direction control. They are the industry standard ±10VDC. If anyone has a lead on machine control software that is compatible with the ±10VDC input on my drives, please let me know. So far the only way for me to use the original drives with a low cost step-and-direction software is buying 3 R991H boards from Rutex. I may just replace the drives outright with new ones from rutex.

To get to this point starting with a manual would be several thousand dollars. There are many of these machines out there, and most people buying used machinery will want a manual machine. The CNC portion usually scares people away, especially if there are electrical problems. If you do get a CNC machine, check if it is stepper or servo. The 70's vintage bridgeport that you speak of was probbably a boss 1 with steper drives. There are retrofits available for either version of this machine, and I highly reccomend doing lots of reading on the subject. There are also several groups at Yahoo.com that deal with CNC and bridgeports. None of those groups could ever hope to compete with this site though!