Bridgeport Upgrade

Gensor wrote:

1) Bridgeport series 1 or 2 850-1350 oz-in steppers upgraded to AC? DC? brush(less?) servos and Mesa cards. Please provide the best off-the-shelf solution, and an ebay equivalent for the servo/encoder. Suggested powersupply solution/volts/amps?

The stepper motor versions do actually work. if you found one at the right price you could leave it stepper. (And probably drive it with nothing more than a parallel port). I guess this would be the base price.
For a complete bolt-on system you might want to look at Pico Systems: pico-systems.com/oscrc4/catalog/index.php?cPath=3
Otherwise, I would be tempted to see what you can find on eBay at a good price and choose the rest of the system to suit.
As an example I am currently configuring a system around some Lenze servos, they need 7.5A at a max of 350V, so I am making a simple rectifier-and-cap PSU, Mesa 5i23 and Mesa 8i20 drive cards. It would be perfectly possible to run the same system with a 7i43 too.

2) Bridgeport series 1 or 2 DC brush servo system upgraded to Mesa cards

That would suit a 5i20/5i23/7i43 and 2x7i29 (dual 2kW H-bridge)

3) Bridgeport series 1 or 2 AC servo system upgraded to Mesa cards

That would depend on the spec of the servos, but the 8i20 is a possibility (but that is not actually supported by the current production EMC2 release)

Gensor wrote:

1) What software are you using with your 8i20 setup?

EMC2 version 2.6 (development version).

When do you think EMCx will support 8i20?

Support will be in version 2.5 which is probably a few weeks from release. You can download and compile it now, though, if you want.

If there was support, what percent of AC servo motors with similar volt/amp requirement be supported by this servo amp?

All of them. There is a HAL component that can take the feedback from any motor and convert it to the drive signals for any drive supported by EMC2.
There is the beginnings of a Wiki page on the subject here, but I got distracted: wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?BLDC