Bridgeport Boss 9 R2E4 convertion

What kind of servo amps are in yours?

I am hoping that for the time being I can use the original Servo Amps from the machine and not have to buy 3 new ones. Down the road, I would be happy to switch to something better but I am trying to do this on a small budget. I am considering designing my own but that is way down the road.

I would love to get some advice on whats some good options are for this conversion and in general.

I am putting a DC motor on the knee for raising and lowering the table.
That's one I'd highly recommevd.

I am putting a DC motor on the knee for raising and lowering the table.
That's one I'd highly recommevd.

I was planning on doing this after the conversion is finished. Are you talking about just a manually controlled motor for just raising and lowering the knee or putting it on the controller and making it its own axis?

How much I/O do you need on a knee mill with no tool changer?

To be 100% honest I don't know exactly how much IO I need for this machine, but I would like to not run out. That said I was hoping to make all the button and wheels on the front of the machine functional. Also I have a 6 axis pendent that I would like to use, and other functions like automatic oilier, coolant liquid and mist, compressed air blast, and so on.

With a 5i25 and 7i77 you would be fine for that conversion. If by chance you run out, you could always add one 7i84 which would give you 32 more inputs and 16 more outputs. i am running my whole VMC on those three boards and that is with an ATC,
hydraulic pump, conveyor and a contol panel full of bttons and lites.

I just finished building the PC with parts I had laying around and a 6i25 and a 7i77. The basic spec are 2GB of DDR, 32GB SSD, dual code AMD, a cheap nvidia graphics, 2 parallel port cards, and the 6i25. I hope to make some major progress over my spring break this week.

bevins wrote:

I just converted it from 480 3 phase to single phase and added a vfd.

What did you do for this conversion? Just the VFD or ...? How did you handle the servo power supply

bevins wrote:

Let me know if you need schematics. I have them all for the machine. Biggest issue is replacing the EAF board, which handles the I/O (PLC) portion.

I could use the schematics very much. I have read that the EAF board can be a problem, what is the work around? Can its functions be handles directly by the 7i77 or do I need some additional circuitry?

Thanks for the help!

Wyliest wrote:

I just finished building the PC with parts I had laying around and a 6i25 and a 7i77. The basic spec are 2GB of DDR, 32GB SSD, dual code AMD, a cheap nvidia graphics, 2 parallel port cards, and the 6i25. I hope to make some major progress over my spring break this week.

bevins wrote:

I just converted it from 480 3 phase to single phase and added a vfd.

What did you do for this conversion? Just the VFD or ...? How did you handle the servo power supply

bevins wrote:

Let me know if you need schematics. I have them all for the machine. Biggest issue is replacing the EAF board, which handles the I/O (PLC) portion.

I could use the schematics very much. I have read that the EAF board can be a problem, what is the work around? Can its functions be handles directly by the 7i77 or do I need some additional circuitry?

Thanks for the help!

My transformer and system was setup for 480 3 phase. I spilt the power, and rewired the big transformer for 220. Then I used just one phase 220.I put a VFD to control the spindle.
You would need the schematics to check and rewire some contactors and the brake etc.... I will see how I can get you the schematics.

I used existing control with the EAF. But dont worry about the EAF. I dont know what drives you have, but I did figure mine out on how I was going to do it. When my existing control dies I will do it with 5i25 and 7i77.

You dont need the EAF board, but you will need some relays.


can you send pics of your drives and the the control boards on the right of them?

View with the door open


First board of the controller from the left.


Second board from the left


Third board of the controller from the left

I am having a little bit of trouble getting the servo drives out, I will have some pictures in a couple hours