Ajax retrofit Bridgeport V2XT

[Riverside192]

Time to take the plunge and give the girl a new brain. I purchased the mill and phase converter a couple of years ago for a cheap price and ran it with the original hardware and software till the computer and power supply quit. So I replaced the computer and added a hard drive and new power supply along with upgraded software from EMI.It worked with limited success. If I had it to do over I would have saved the money I spent with EMI and put it toward a new control. I have already purchased a Via Epia mini ITX that was listed on Ajax's web site and ordered the full package for a Bridgeport CNC conversion.I have already replaced the old CRT with a new flat screen. Works great and fit right in the hole . I modify machinery for a living so I don't feel intimidated about the project. Here's your chance to shine Ajax so don't let me down. Thought I would add a few pics of the before.

[NEATman]

Riverside192-
Nice machine! My 1993 vintage V2XT is almost in that nice of shape. My controller died shortly after I got the machine also. I had tried looking for spare parts, but decided to take the plunge and convert it. It was a bit daunting hacking all of the guts out of the entire cabinet, and converting to Mach3, but it was worth it. Cool trick about mounting the monitor - I did the same with a 15" dell LCD - pic attached.

I temporarily converted the machine to steppers (as I had them on hand) but I am now going to begin a "proper" conversion complete with Galil card and brushless servo's on all three (possibly 4) axes. My machine is only for hobby use, so it's taking a loooooong time to convert, but I have gathered all of the electronics and hope to have it completed this winter.

I have started laying out alternate control panels for surrounding the monitor, and also the jog wheel on the front of the quill. I can't decide on what buttons, and I have been running the machine with the keyboard, mouse and e-stop only for about a year.

I'll certainly keep a close eye on your project.

If you hadn't already found it, there is a V2XT group on yahoo groups.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/v2xt/

Regards,
NEATman

[Riverside192]

The Package from Ajax arrived Wed. evening and like I've read in a few other posts everything was well packaged and appears to have arrived in good shape. Today I started disassembly on the cabinet. Got a good start on it tonite after work and maybe some more tomorrow nite. Thanks for your interest NEATman I need any encouragement I can get. Yes ,I found the Yahoo V2XT website some time back. Good source of info from a lot of good people. A few more pics of the project

[Riverside192]

After a week of evenings of working on this thing I finally have the cabinet back together and had just started tearing into the encoders when I realized that the shaft I was looking at was 10mm instead of 3/8 in.. I went to the website but they don"t offer 10mm encoders and since it is a weekend and a holiday I can't get intouch with anyone till Tue. Just a few thoughts here: after getting your new components the first thing you want to do is set fire to the schematic and download the current one from the web. It will save you a few hours of head banging. If you don't see too well get a 10 pin connector from your local computer supply store that is already pigtailed. Soldering those little pins sucks for us old blind farts. And what is the deal with not having a tach hookup for the Boss?! The Pendant is nice and looks like it will be very handy. I picked up a wireless keyboard and mouse, 2 less cables to run. I still have to cut a small hole in the box to run the pendant and monitor cables through. All in all it has been a fairly straight forward changeover with only a few glitches so far. More later and hopefully a happy ending.

[MarcL]

Hollow shaft encoders with a 10mm bore are going to be hard to find, but not impossible. Dynapar makes F18 encoders with that bore. You will have to call Ajax to find out whether they stock them.

See http://www.dynapar.com/content.aspx?id=117.

And what is the deal with not having a tach hookup for the Boss?!

Centroid and Ajax controls do not use tach feedback from the motors, so it would be hard to find a good place to hook them up....

[NC Cams]

I recall seeing where someone had real/severe "issues" with an Ajax wireless keyboard in a shop environment - wireless K/B may be neat feature for a home PC but NOT necessarily the best idea for a RF noisey shop environment...

caveat emptor

[Riverside192]

Well my mistake MarcL , its not really a tach but a potientiometer? registers position of the speed control & sits in the place of the hand crank on manual machines. I have also heard of the RF interferance issue with wireless keyboards.Since this is my personal toy I thought what the heck if I have to I'll swap it out with the house computer. I've got most everything hooked up with a few loose wires left to be tied up. The computer and pendant work good so far,I should get the encoders Fri. so maybe this weekend I can finish up and get back to cutting chips and making a few bucks on the side :

[MarcL]

Interesting. Assuming it is a analog potentiometer that reports the position of the vari-speed, then with some external electronics you could conceivably use it, plus the analog spindle speed output from the DC3IO, to control the speed-up and speed-down solenoids.

It could certainly be done with a Koyo/DirectLogic DL05 PLC plus analog input card: the analog card could receive the signals from the potentiometer and from the DC3IO; you could connect a digital signal from the DC3IO or an auxiliary contact on your spindle contactor to tell the DL05 when the spindle is running (so it is okay to move the vari-speed); and you could connect digital or relay outputs from the DL05 to the solenoids.

Alternately, you could just install a VFD.

[NEATman]

I already have a VFD on my machine, but the alternate way I was thinking of controlling the spindle speed was by putting an index mark on the spindle, and then using a stepper motor in place of the original air motor to increase or decrease the spindle speed using the vari-speed unit. I haven't exactly worked out the electronics, it's just an idea at this point. I would think if there were an index mark on the spindle itself, it would be more accurate than the original potentiometer.

Has anyone taken this approach before? If so, how?

NEATman

[CASTLEVILLE]

hey Riverside what did you end up doing with your encoders? I was thinking of ordering a kit and my servos have 10mm shafts too. Called Ajax the other day to see if they could get me some encoders to fit and they said they would look in to it and get back to me.