R2E3 success story

[bkraz]

I would like to contribute my experiences back to the forum after reading posts here and getting my machine running like a dream. Thanks everybody!

I bought a 1985 Bridgeport R2E3 Series I from a local machinery broker (Ram Machinery) here in the south SF Bay Area. The broker claimed he would hire a rigging company to get the mill into my garage - even through the 83" high door, which is not high enough for the mill. Well, he ended up taking my money and leaving the mill in the driveway. With much luck and an entire afternoon, my father and I manager to disassemble the mill head far enough so that we could roll the machine under the door into the garage. We used 3/4" iron pipe as rollers and a come-along winch attached to the garage wall. I never believed this system could work as well as it did.

While the head was open, I changed the plastic bushings that allow the driven varispeed pulley to slide up and down. The old ones were worn, but not extremely badly. The motor pulley had a bluish-green plastic bushing, which did not match the black one I got in my 2HP rebuild kit, so I left it alone. I also changed all of the bearings in the head- two of the three sounded terrible.

The broker left it up to me to rewire the machine from 480 volt operation to 240 volt. Fortunately, some 240v motor overload heaters were still sitting in the bottom of the cabinet, so I didn't have to find those. I bought a 5HP rotary phase converter from Anderson Converters on eBay. This thing works like a charm! It turns on instantly, and the machine has never had a problem with it. I made sure the generated leg of the three-phase power was not used for the 120v control transformers. I was also lucky to get a full set of manuals for the machine, so I knew which transformer did what.

The taper in the spindle (300 Erickson) had some gouging that kept the tool holders from seating properly. The result was big runout (a few thousandths). I know this might make some readers shudder, but I fixed it by sticking a dremel with a grinding stone up the spindle to knock down the high spots. My thinking was that a pit in the taper would not be a problem, but a high spot or a ridge would. I worked slowly, and checked the fit-up by drawing on the tool holder with a marker, then spinning it in the spindle (with drive dogs removed). Final runout was about .0003 at the tool holder.

The machine powered on, and indicated "BAT" on the display (dead battery). After changing the battery and still seeing the message - I realized there are TWO battery backups in this machine! The manuals have the information, but finding it is sometimes takes a while. One battery is located in the lower right of the main electrical cabinet, and the other is BEHIND the front control panel. You have to unscrew all the perimeter screws and be careful not to let the panel fall and yank all the cables apart.

With the machine powered up and ready, I tried connecting my computer to port A, via a USB/serial adapter. It seemed to work. I used the Windows terminal program, and by following some obscure commands I found on a newsgroup ( ctrl-T, ctrl-V, etc) I was able to store a single-line program in the R2E3. I could see the line I typed on the machine's LCD screen. Well, that was interesting, but it didn't seem too useful. In any case, I wanted to run programs longer than the machine's 12,000 character limit, so I moved to port B for DNC.

I owe a huge thanks to machintek for sending me the Bridgeport DNC program called LDEZLINK ( EZLINK ). This thing works great! In Windows XP, I set my USB/serial adapter to COM1, and ran the LDEZLINK. I put NC files in the directory that have numbers for names and end in .txt. 55.txt and 888.txt for example. At the machine front panel, I select LOAD, DNC, then enter the name of the program (without the .txt). eg 888 EXECUTE. It responds with "LOAD DNC". Then I press AUTO, and START. It starts cutting! This is pretty convenient, because without going back to the computer, I can press 55 EXECUTE, and cut a different program that is also stored on the hard drive.

Again, a huge thanks to all of you - this forum is a tremendous resource!

-Ben

[Jim Mill]

Ben, What did the 3 phase converter cost??? (ball park).
I also have a nightmare story buying My first cnc from a tool outfit in NH. I live on LI,NY. My cnc isn't fully operational and I have been lurking in the shadows of this fantastic site trying to find a good cadcam program to learn, and get some idea on hooking my desktop to the com. port that has 2 lead wires hot wired to the com port. Thanks...Jim MILL

[Jim Mill]

Ben, What did the 3 phase converter cost??? (ball park).
I also have a nightmare story buying My first cnc from a tool outfit in NH. I live on LI,NY. My cnc isn't fully operational and I have been lurking in the shadows of this fantastic site trying to find a good cadcam program to learn, and get some idea on hooking my desktop to the com. port that has 2 lead wires hot wired to the com port. I forgot to mention, that the Attorney's fee kinda of puts me in the mid range to purchase a program Thanks...Jim MILL

[bkraz]

The 5HP phase converter was $379 (plus another $75 for shipping!). A similarly sized model from Phase-a-matic costs about $800 plus shipping. This thing is heavy, too. I couldn't lift it and carry it all the way from my front door to the garage - I could just barely get it up onto the shelf of a cart so I could wheel it in. Good luck!