Bridgeport Boss 5 retrofit drive power

[AThayer]

I was wondering how you guys have used the original stepper drive power supply when using new and modern drives? I'm guessing that you disconnect the reactors? Also anyone have a wiring schematic that you can read? I purchased a manual on cd a long time ago. Now with newer computers I cant seem to get it to open the files. Any way where are the bridge rectifiers that are used with drive power supply? Any help is great. Thanks

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[Eric]

Are you finally deciding on removing the the original BOSS stepper controls and replace them newer drivers? If so, then yes, you can remove almost all of the electronics, especially the 3x saturable core reactors. There are a number of power supplies in the original design and they all have bridge rectifiers in them that you can reuse if you are going to use DC stepper drivers. You can even reuse one of the transformers for your DC power supply with a little rework of the coils. However, you might as well just buy a toroid transformer (much smaller and easier to package) and make your own DC power supply. I always prefer to find drivers with an AC power input because you do not have to mess with the DC supply. However those are more expensive drivers. Are you going to keep your machine on 3 phase or gut it and switch to single phase and add a VFD? I like my machine on 3 phase with the original drives because it just keeps on chugging away and will rapid over 150 ipm all day long. However this is almost pointless for my hobby only use.

Do you know what drives you want to use and what their maximum DC voltage is? The large T2 3 phase transformer has taps for 60-70-80 VAC and you can just use one of the coils for the power supply. I believe the secondary windings are about 2V (?) per turn so if you unwrap a few turns, you can reduce the voltage enough for it to be safe for use with Gecko drives after it is rectified. Are you keeping the original BOSS motors?

I think I may have posted my schematics on here before. You can probably search for it.

Did you ever get one axis to work on Linux with the original phase drive?

[AThayer]

I purchased some leadshine drives off ebay. They are 20-80 volts so I plan to use T2 as the power supply. At this time I plan to run it on 3 phase.

[Eric]

To use the T2 transformer you will have to unwrap a few turns of the secondary because the lowest tap setting is 60VAC. Once that is rectified and filtered there will be 85VDC. That is too much for your drivers.

[AThayer]

Ok how come the voltage on fuse 12-13-14 was only 56-63 when the machine was complete?

[AThayer]

Also could I hook the primary side of t2 to 125-130 volts ac. Then connect to the 80 volt output. Any ideas?

[Eric]

Ok how come the voltage on fuse 12-13-14 was only 56-63 when the machine was complete?

I believe there is a voltage drop because the saturable core reactors are in the circuit between the T2 secondary coil and the bridge rectifiers.

[Eric]

Also could I hook the primary side of t2 to 125-130 volts ac. Then connect to the 80 volt output. Any ideas?

If you provide single phase 120VAC to one coil of the transformer, you will see a much lower output voltage on the secondary. I do not know what it will be because I have not personally tried it. I supply 240VAC in and I get 60V out on the lowest tap. So guessing if we provide 120VAC in we should get something around 30V out. Multiply that by sq.rt. of 2 (1.414) and we should see 30 x 1.414 = 42VDC out of a bridge rectifier. If we use the 80V tap, we should see 40V out and 40 x 1.414 = 56VDC out....this is all ball-parked theory under no load conditions.

If this works, you should be able to take out the reactors, and rework the 56VDC power supply to remove the other two phases along with the SMS, ACC, and axis drive cards.....basically take out everything and only save a hand full of components. This is why so many people do these retrofits....to power form single phase and to remove the outdated drive electronics. However, the old stuff really works better w/o changing the motors....as long as they are working and not blowing transistors.

How much current are the Leadshine drives capable of sourcing to the motors? Do you have any specs you can attach?

Do you have 208VAC 3 phase, 230VAC 3 phase or are you running off a 3 phase converter? What voltage?

[AThayer]

I am running off from a phase convertor. The leadshine drives are rated at 8 amps

[Eric]

I just went out to my shop and rewired the left coil (Z-axis) of the T2 transformer with 120VAC. I removed the jumpers to other coils and had it set up as follows:
230VAC taps (paralleled primary)
Line = Z1-Z3
Neutral = Z2-Z4
Ground tied to back panel
117VAC across the primary (measured)
Secondary:
60V tap Z5-Z6 = 30.7VAC
70V tap Z5-Z7 = 35.8VAC
80V tap Z5-Z10 = 41.0VAC
Input power consumption was 14W.
These are all NO LOAD values.

480VAC taps (series primary)
Line = Z1
Neutral = Z4
Jumper Z2-Z3
Ground tied to back panel
117VAC across the primary (measured)
Secondary:
60V tap Z5-Z6 = 15.4VAC
70V tap Z5-Z7 = 17.9VAC
80V tap Z5-Z10 = 20.5VAC
Input power consumption was 3W.
These are all NO LOAD values.

[AThayer]

I just went out to my shop and rewired the left coil (Z-axis) of the T2 transformer with 120VAC. I removed the jumpers to other coils and had it set up as follows:
230VAC taps (paralleled primary)
Line = Z1-Z3
Neutral = Z2-Z4
Ground tied to back panel
117VAC across the primary (measured)
Secondary:
60V tap Z5-Z6 = 30.7VAC
70V tap Z5-Z7 = 35.8VAC
80V tap Z5-Z10 = 41.0VAC
Input power consumption was 14W.
These are all NO LOAD values.

480VAC taps (series primary)
Line = Z1
Neutral = Z4
Jumper Z2-Z3
Ground tied to back panel
117VAC across the primary (measured)
Secondary:
60V tap Z5-Z6 = 15.4VAC
70V tap Z5-Z7 = 17.9VAC
80V tap Z5-Z10 = 20.5VAC
Input power consumption was 3W.
These are all NO LOAD values.

So does that mean it will work? What are your thoughts?

[Eric]

I bet if you brought in 240V + Neutral + Ground from your wall you could easily do it. You could power each of the outer T2 coils with a different phase and neutral and use these to power the the Y and Z axis. Since the X axis is lighter than the Y axis, you could power both the X and Z axis drivers from the same coil. You would have to make two DC power supplies for this. This should be a piece of cake since the existing BOSS 5 machine already has 3X power supplies. You could just leave one as a backup or spare.

If you try to hook up each of the T2 coils with 120V it will be unbalanced and I am not sure what would happen. Probably hum a lot. This is why I was saying to use two of the coils. You could also try to use just one coil for all three drivers, but I do not know if you will overload the transformer. The transformer is rated for 15A per phase. I guess it depends if the Leadshine drivers can be configured for lower output current.

[AThayer]

yes leadshine drives have dip switches to control current. I have searched for a better wiring schematic with no luck.

[AThayer]

Have you ever heard or seen anyone control voltage output with pwm and a mosfet? Any ideas?

[Eric]

Have you ever heard or seen anyone control voltage output with pwm and a mosfet? Any ideas?

For what purpose? Spindle control? I do not think I have gone from analog output to PWM without using a PIC or ATMEGA microcontroller. However, I use PWM all the time at work for controlling all sorts of things, but mostly heating applications.

For PWM control or PWM to 0-10V, I have done the following, but this is not exactly what you asked.....

I have played around with PWM spindle control on my CNC router with a brushed DC motor. It was a Dynetic Systems brushed DC servo motor rated at 44DC, 2.8A, 28oz-in, 5300 RPM. I used Mach 3 to output PWM speed control and I used a 42Vdc power supply. See attached schematic. I also had a flyback diode across the motor + and - terminals. I used an IRF540N MOSFET. It worked pretty good for a simple circuit.


I have also played around controlling my BOSS 5 spindle with Mach3 PWM output to a 0 to +10V input. I "borrowed" my Automation Direct GS2 2HP VFD from my manual Bridgeport for the experiment. The attached schematics were preliminary ones that I used for bench testing. I did some tweaking to the components as I tested them. I think I added another small value resistor in series with the 10K pot so get a closer to a full 10V. The 100uF cap was just what I had lying around at the time. I think the value can be much lower, but that worked for me. I know this was not a MOSFET circuit, but it was an example of PWM to 0-10V using a VFD. This worked great with the S code for spindle speed output from Mach3. I had a 12VDC power supply for the LM358 and a 5V power supply for the other components.