BOSS retro finally finished

[Hood]

Have finally finished my series 1 retrofit, its been a long haul as I have been waiting to get into my new workshop before I completed it. Finally got the lease sorted out and moved the mill in on Monday and have just today finished swapping the motors and limits over from the manual mill that I previously converted and have been using for the last year or so.
I made a short video of the first cuts on the mill today but unfortunately I cant get it uploaded to my site, must be too big
You will see some pics of the mill from start to finish here http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/...ries1Retro.htm

My head has been spinning the last few days but now its complete I can relax and enjoy my new toy

Hood

[unterhaus]

that's really nice. I have been struggling with how I'm going to arrange my control cabinet. The idea of putting the computer behind the geckos and wiring is very nice.

[One of Many]

That is a bit of work to be proud of!

Did everything come out better than the OEM stepper power and resolution?

DC

[Hood]

Originally Posted by unterhaus that's really nice. I have been struggling with how I'm going to arrange my control cabinet. The idea of putting the computer behind the geckos and wiring is very nice.

The first idea I had was to build a computer onto the back of a sheet of Aluminium and fit it in the same space as the tape reader, but I only had room for a micro ATX motherboard so I decided for the sake of future upgrades a full size computer case with a new side panel and the hard drives, CDROM etc attached to it was the best option. This meant I had to make the space available greater than the tape reader had, but as there is so much room in the cabinet this was not a problem. Only drawback with having the Geckos etc on the case side is I have to remove the side before I can fully remove the computer from the mill.

Originally Posted by One of Many That is a bit of work to be proud of! Did everything come out better than the OEM stepper power and resolution? DC

I never ran the mill under OEM hardware so not sure of the stepper power before. It was a BOSS 6.1 which is a UK version of the BOSS 6. It has 2.5 to 1 reduction and the resolution of it was 0.0005" in standard trim. With the Geckos it now has micro stepping instead of half stepping so in theory the resolution is now 5 times more so it should be 0.0001".

Hood

[CNCfun&games]

Hood,
Excellent Job!!! I'm still working on the Electronics package & Operator console on both my 2 J & Boss mills. I was able to pick up a Bridgeport Keyboard for the Boss.
I've given the Boss Y axis casting a nose job since it probably would not pass the Dept. of health & safety Guidelines.
W. Smith

Hood, I use the photo editor and cut pic height to 3.15" (80mm) from the
normal 22". The keyboard was $15. on ebay....Wis i could have obtained 2
I like the Red Bridgeport logo.

[Hood]

Ha Ha yes know what you mean Was thinking of doing the same to mine but I have hung off for the moment as I may fit an encoder onto the ballscrew for future upgrades
What does a Bridgeport keyboard look like? I have got rid of the keyboard you see in the pics and now have a Compaq Keyboard/Trackball combo, its cream coloured which is not so good but I have a feeling it wont stay that colour for long LOL
I have been working on a new screen layout for Mach this weekend, the normal layout is not the best for a touch screen and as its meant to apeal to all types of users there are controls I will never use, also there are controls I have made that were not there before. Heres a pic of the new layout on the main page. BTW how do you attach thumbnails rather than the full image?

Hood

[HuFlungDung]

Looks like a really nicely done job, Hood

Idea:
Mills do throw chips all over the place, including behind. What I came up with for my old knee mill, was to put up a backboard, immediately behind the table, more or less flush with the back column or the back of your drip pan. It was kind of a cut and fit job to make the wood fit close to the machine.

I made this backboard about as tall as the spindle in the full up position. Then, added a top shelf to the backboard, extending out over the table about a foot. Again, the shelf had to be custom contoured to fit fairly close around the head of the machine. So, the chips will not go over the top of the backboard, nor behind the machine. Most of them will drop right down into that coolant tray you have there.

I found that the shelf has some use for setting small tools, like a caliper, notepad, pen, mouse pad, wrench etc, on top of. It is quite handy. Of course, I intend to never have any kind of unusual part on that machine table that will be any higher than spindle nose height.

[Hood]

Well I have actually been toying with the idea of fully enclosing the machine, kind of like a VMC
Not sure if this would be a good idea as it already seems massive in my small workshop. Your idea is probably better, sort of like some of the interact II mills (I think they are called) that I have seen.

Hood