I'm new to the community, and have learned a lot from all of the posts from everyone willing to share there experiences. I have done searches and have come close to the question(s) i have but not exact. I recently purchased a Bridgeport Series 1, and it currently has a AHHA (out of buisiness) retrofit to the original stepper drives. I have not had a chance to power up the machine, or see it in action. If the drives/motors don't work (taking a chance), I am going to do a servo swap with new drives and run mach 3, if they do run i'm going to run them untill a motor or drive goes and then do the swap. I understand how g-code works, and have seen CNC programming in action, but never done it myself. The things that i think i have learned correctly are:

#1 Break out boards for these machines go from P.C.'s parallel port and interface the original stepper drive controllers and other motion controls. So having a retrofit machine with different drives, it doesn't have this?

#2 Stepper motors do not have the precision (resolution) that servo motors have, but are adequate for most jobs and people are still running them?

#3 Mach 1/2/3 is a windows based open sourced program that has lots of functions, and is up to date technology.

The questions i have are:

#1 Seeings how i have not learned g-code would it be best to start learning on Mach 3 software, or learn with the AHHA program, and maybe do the switch later? Or does it not matter because they are both the same and one just has more functions? I know it's probrably like asking if i should learn dos, and then move to windows, or just go right to windows, and don't bother with dos. It would be a inconvienience to learn a new software program if they are that much different and if the motors/drives ever do burn out to re-learn different programming if i could have started with the updated one to begin with.

#2 If it is best to start with Mach software, will it be as simple as ditching the ahha software, installing mach, hooking the parallel port to the AHHA controller, setting it up, and start learning the code?

#3 Adding to #2, is it possible to control ahha drives with Mach software?

#4 Has anyone controlled the spindle speed / breaking with a frequency drive control? Can mach/AHHA do this? I'd like to convert mine to this if possible.

#5 Would it be best and more accurate to swap out the steppers for servos to make it a better machine in the long haul? What would this gain for part precision?

Any help anyone can give i would appriciate. I am an electronics engineer, and have a plc backround, so any help that i can give, i'll try my best.

My first refit was from a bandit to AHHA. back when DOS was king. I changed this machine over to Mach2. At the time I thought AHHA about the same. sence then AHHA has died and Mach has improved. i'd make the change just for support issues.

I later refit this machine again to Camsoft. Attached is an install notes that will tell you functions on the DB37 connector on your AHHA step drive box

Karl

I take a stab at a few questions.

1.More than likely.
2. As long as you operate the steppers within their limits and don't loose steps, there will not be a major difference.
3.Mach is not open source but it will run 500 lines of code in demo mode or is under $200 to purchase.
4. I would say start with Mach3 and be happy. G-code is not the same from machine to machine and while a lot of the AHHA code will translate to Mach3, I think it would be better to start with what you will most likely deal with for a long time.
5.If the AHHA controller takes step and direction input, then yes it will be pretty straight forward but Since I no nothing about AHHA, someone will have to answer that for you.
6. Mach3 can control a VFD. You may or may not need an extra piece of electronics to do so.
7. If the motors and drives are good, I would stay with the steppers and have a running machine sooner rather than later.

I have two Bridgeports running on Ah-ha. It's actually a pretty good system and super easy to learn.

The stepper motors will give you decent results.

Let me know if you need help with settings for your machine or anything else. I have 15 years of experience working with this system.

Hi,

I need a little clarification.

According to http://pminmo.com/mach3-setup, To Setup the motor outputs in mach 3...
navigate to the Motor Outputs tab and define the interface as your hardware needs. Check for each axis you plan on using to be Enabled, the Step and Dir Pin Number (DB25 Definition) assinged, and the Step and Dir Port number is set the same as below. (i.e. Port 1) The columns with the RED X need to be configured for the motors to run, the other two also need to be configured and will affect accuracy but not if they run or not.


My question is: Which ports in the DB37 pinout connect to "step #" and "Dir #"?

I am guessing that the it is signx/pwmx from the pinout document, but which is which?


Thanks

I figured it out. Sign maps to Dir. PWM maps to Step.