I've recently acquired a Bridgeport Boss 8, pictured he

http://gallery.donniebarnes.com/cnc-mill

The drive motors and encoder plate information is he

http://www.donniebarnes.com/~djb/mill-info.txt

I've got the original PC that the machine used, but have no desire to even
try to get it working as it's circa 1985 stuff. The machine has Contraves
motors as well as Contraves drive units (NC 400). I've done some basic
research on retrofitting it myself using a PC running EMC. I believe that
can be done, and I believe I have the skills to do it. That said, I'd
rather spend my time learning actual machining on my mini-mill and
mini-lathe since I have pretty much zero in the way of machining skills (I
do have some good books). So in searching for possible other retrofit
options, the one that sticks out is the AjaxCNC kit.

Anyone have any experience putting one of those on this particular (or very
similar) mill? No, I'm not looking for installation help...I'm quite
certain if I bought the kit I could get it going. I'm curious about what
you thought of what you got with the kit and how well it works.

For background info on my skills, I have been soldering since I was about 8
years old. I have a degree in Computer Engineering and am *very* familiar
with Linux and PCs in general. I am handy with machinery (ie. I can do
basic car repair stuff) and I race cars, so some of why I want to learn
machining is to be able to make and repair race car parts.

The important parts of the mill seem to be in good shape and I was told
when I bought it that it was running the last time it was hooked up, but
who really knows. I'm told all the motors *are* likely fine, but that if
anything is bad it could be the encoders and/or electronic drives. The
beauty of the Ajax kit is that it retains the motors but you can update to
higher resolution encoders and it doesn't use the NC 400 drive units.

Anyway, any input on this is welcome. I am on the EMC users mailing list
and if I decide to go further down that route I'll post there about
specifics of doing this myself. Oh, I have the kit on order from
http://www.stirlingsteele.com to upgrade my mini-mill and mini-lathe to CNC
using a PC running EMC. I do plan to continue doing stuff mostly by hand
until I'm comfortable with that before I dive into CNC whole hog, but the
nice part of that kit is that it retains all manual controls, too. So with
the mini stuff I will have a basic understanding of how EMC should work on
something.


--Donnie

--
Donnie Barnes http://www.donniebarnes.com 879. V.