Bridgeport Manual to CNC conversion...

[Davek0974]

We have motion In 2 axes at least. Done some basic servo tuning, cut the top speed to 5000mm/min as 7500 was just too scary. Got homing and soft limits working nicely. Homing is silly-accurate with index-homing turned on - about +/1 0.01mm or better as far as i can measure.

Next I fitted up the Spindle VFD, expecting serious issues with my complex manual/auto speed control idea. I was totally amazed that I have perfect control of speed from 40rpm to 3000rpm within about 25rpm tolerance! It tells me to choose back-gear or high-gear and high or low speed-pulley setting depending on speed chosen by code.

The only issue it does have is that if it is set for say 100rpm in back-gear low range, and the code calls for 2000rpm in high-gear high range, it will spin up the spindle and then tell me to change gear - this cannot be done without smashing the drive.

I have all the code in SpindleSpeed.m1s - can it also be made to stop the spindle and restart it after pressing enter without wrecking the code-flow etc ??

My bench-top lash-up, well it's not a bench but the plasma-cutter but here you go ...



Going to need a pretty big cabinet.