On Thu, Jul 01, 2010 at 08:55:40PM -0400, Terry wrote: > Has anyone done an upgrade on a mid 80's Bridgeport mill with a Pro Trak > control? I have one that has Gentek DC servo's and amplifiers. The > machine has servo motors on all three axis and they work fine but I > would like a more modern set up. I have the schematics and manuals. The > manual says that the amps work using Pulse Width Modulation. I'm not > sure what it uses for signals. I have seen in forums that others have > used Mesa boards and EMC to retro older controls using the original amps > and motors. I am a Linux fan, I use it as my primary O.S., but no > expert. I am no electronics expert either. Others have made it sound > easy. Would a experienced machinist like myself be able to tackle this? > Has anyone done a similar retrofit? > Thanks for any replies. > Terry
Terry, can you tell us more specifically what you have? This isn't much to go on. If the amps are velocity mode and take analog +-10v in, the motors have tachs going to the amps and encoders going to the control, and it all works, you've got a fairly simple retrofit. You are right that many people use Mesa interface hardware to do this. Early this year Seb K and I retrofitted a mill a lot like this. Except for the keypad on the original control it was fully in working condition. We also had full documentation. We tore out the old control and had the machine homing and running under EMC2 and cutting its first chips in a little over 11 hours. Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Sprint What will you do first with EVO, the first 4G phone? Visit sprint.com/first -- http://p.sf.net/sfu/sprint-com-first _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
