Newbie- Camsoft BP R2E3 retro

[silverstreak]

I'm starting a Camsoft retro on a BP R2E3 CNC. I've been looking for several months (just retired from GM) looking for someone that has recently completed a BP conversion and can share some direction and possible pictures. What I want to do is eliminate as much of the old electronics as I can so that's where photos would help. My son and I have 2 nearly identical high school mills and we have a full set of factory prints. We want to switch over to a VFD which I think will help free up some room. Thanks

[Karl_T]

I've done a Series 1 boss to Ahha (old old cnc control), a series 2 to mach, and an excello 602 to Camsoft. I don't know your model for sure; toolchanger?; servos or steppers?; operator panel?.

In general, I use the empty room approach. Gut the panel, keep the components. Its easier to do a new component layout this way. (A couple things might stay right where they are, like a DC power supply.) Find and lable all the wires to your machine components when the panel is empty.

You'll need more panel space than the old machine had. Its best to have your computer inside a panel. You'll need a galil 2900 or 1900 ICM. leave room for a second. Leave room for two opto 22 boards. Put all these units together and away from the high power stuff. You'll need DC power supplies for the logic, 5 volts for sure. 10 volts for the speed/feed pots. I use 24 volt for the IO.

Then figure what you need for servo amps or stepper drivers plus power supplies for these. Put this stuff and your VFD in a separate area.

A good layout will make your machine more maintainable down the road.

Karl

[Brad Dirks]

Hello! My name is Brad. I retrofitted a Series 1 R2E4, my first CNC retrofit project. With very little knowledge of CNC systems, I wanted to use cheap parts so if I fried them it wouldn't cost much. I used Gecko 320 servo drives, US digital encoders, Turbo CNC software on an old 233 Pentium DOS computer,wired straight to the parallel port, no breakout board. I control only the access motors, the spindle speed controlled manually. It worked really well. I have since upgraded to MACH 3 software, a newer computer and breakout board.
To get the lower DC voltage for the Gecko drives, I wired the original transformers for 440 volts, when actually I used 220 volts. I have since done a Leblond tapeturn lathe about the same way.
Thanks,
Brad

[Karl_T]

Ok, from what Brad said, I assume you got DC brushed servos with the old resolvers. If this is correct, advanced motion control analog servo amps are your best bet to work with Camsoft/Galil.

http://www.a-m-c.com/content/prods/d...log_input.html

Many of these have a 90 volt max DC supply, others have a 180 max. You can turn the voltage on this down as Brad did , or if you need really high rapid speeds, get servo amps that can use the higher voltage.

USdigital makes a good encoder, but don't cheap out on single ended. I learnt the hard way, differential are worth the extra cost.

Karl

[silverstreak]

Thanks Karl and Brad, The Camsoft conversion came with a Galil card and combination software. We're supposed to be able to communicate directly to the Bridgeport electronics through the Galil board and use all of the servos and factory encoders. We're just starting to identify all of the old boards and electronics and it would help if someone has already done the conversion. I've read and heard several people say if they had to do it all over again they would start by removing all of the old stuff and reinstall it in a more compact fashion. Pictures would help so we're going to document what we come up with.

[silverstreak]

Brad, Do you have pictures and a total of what your upgrade cost you? Thanks

[silverstreak]

Karl, The Camsoft kit we purchased is supposed to have everything needed to upgrade the Bridgeport mill without changing the old motors or encorders. We do have brushed DC 140 volt servos with BEI encorders. The mill is just a little heavier than a 2 hp J-head BP. We don't have a tool changer and we can use manual motor speed. The op. system was a BOSS 8 with a BOSS drawing program on a desk top computer that after drawing a part and processing the G-code, was downloaded to the machine computer, all 12 K memory it could handle at a time. Thanks again Karl.

[Karl_T]

Just one comment. looks like you're in great shape with servo motors and BEI encoders. While it might be possible to re-use your servo amps, its probably not a good idea. I'd get AMC servo amps. If you need to watch your pennies (who doesn't), I've had fairly good luck buying used off ebay. But I have bought a couple broken ones.

Karl