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New to me Bridgeport Mill with issues

Dgmontoya

Plastic
Joined
May 1, 2017
So I wired up my new used Mill this weekend and the dro worked but the power feed would not work. Tonight I inspected the power feed and found a wire inside disconnected and the fuse blown. Connected the two black wires back together put in a fuse turn it on and the three phase converter went Haywire and the dro shut off. On the circuit board of the power feed a resistor smoked. I've then rewired the ground on the Main Power thinking that might have been an issue and still no dro but when I power the power feed back up it then popped the fuse. Still dro won't turn on and I can't find a fuse or reset button. Looking for any and all suggestions. I will upload some pictures as soon as I figure out how.

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Lesson #1: If you don't know what you're doing with electrical, don't mess with it.

It sounds like you were trying to wire everything to your VFD, big mistake. Most DROs are 120 VAC. BP power feeds can be either 120 single phase or multiple 3 phase voltages. Generally except for the gearbox feed, all other 3 phase feeds go through a control box on the side of the mill.

If you tried to wire everything to a VFD, you probably fried the DRO and the feed control board.
JR
 
Sorry was hoping pics wold show this. It is a brigdeport power feed. No discernable part numbers and a sony magnescale lf-200. The black wires I connected appear to be the hot coming into the unit. When I opened it fell out of the wire nut.
 
This is how it was setup when I got it. Tested all the voltages to make sure they were correct before plugging in and they were.
 
Unless you have something unusual, I believe all the power-feed units are 120-volt single phase (mine plugs directly into a 120v outlet)--how/why is it (or the DRO) connected to or affecting phase-converter? (maybe there are some versions that are 230v single-phase, dunno, someone else may chime in). Cheers (be careful!).

The previous owner appears to have borrowed a leg off of the of the mill to get a 120 volts for the dro and feed.
 
That would be OK if done properly using a rotary phase converter (or utility power), not a VFD. And if a rotary converter, one of the pass-thru 120 volt legs must be used, not the "manufactured" leg. But again, they may be just plugged into a standard 120v outlet. Cheers

It's a phase-a-matic converter. Sounds like that maybe the issue. It's tested 120v at the plug. Could it have been ok until something went wrong. That said I'm going to have to repair if stuff burned out. Any suggestions
 
So I wired up my new used Mill this weekend and the dro worked but the power feed would not work. Tonight I inspected the power feed and found a wire inside disconnected and the fuse blown. Connected the two black wires back together put in a fuse turn it on and the three phase converter went Haywire and the dro shut off. On the circuit board of the power feed a resistor smoked. I've then rewired the ground on the Main Power thinking that might have been an issue and still no dro but when I power the power feed back up it then popped the fuse. Still dro won't turn on and I can't find a fuse or reset button. Looking for any and all suggestions. I will upload some pictures as soon as I figure out how.

20170501_195355.jpg20170501_195401.jpg20170501_195424.jpg20170501_202942.jpg20170501_203000.jpg
 
I'm not of a whole lot of immediate help, since I've not delved into the power feeds, other than adjusting limit switches, there is a lot of info on here to search, and replacement PCB's are available. You have a rotary converter, so even if the wild leg was wired up, seems it wouldn't behave as you describe, sounds like some incorrect wiring, voltage or short. Difficult to tell from the photo, but the obviously fried component looks like a diode.

The diet is burned beyond recognition hopefully someone here has one and they can either send me a picture or tell me the colored rings on it
 
There are 4 black wires that can be attached to each other in a Bridgeport powerfeed. Black from the rapid switch, black from the motor, black from the circuit board, black from the on/off switch. The on/off switch should go to the circuit board wire and then the motor to the rapid switch.

If black from incoming power has a wire nut on it, that should be going to the fuse. Granted, I would go ahead and solder incoming power directly, not through a wire nut. But that is just my personal preference.

Bridgeport powerfeed motors are all 120VAC incoming power, so just plug it into the wall. But it looks like that PCB is fried already. You can get a replacement one, they are $290 for the upgrade kit (you have to replace the pot as well as its a different resistance pot) depending on where you get it.

With it killing your DRO as well, perhaps it is time to upgrade? That DRO look ancient as the pyramids lol I personally have never opened up one like that, so I cant give any advice on it.

Jon
H&W Machine Repair
 
The diet is burned beyond recognition hopefully someone here has one and they can either send me a picture or tell me the colored rings on it
Looks like a resistor with color bands still visible. A diode would have a white stripe on one end. All the other diodes on the board are smaller.
 
If I were to up grade the power feed is that a simple Google search or can you recommend somewhere. For 200-300 it's worth me saving the time trouble shooting.
 
You won't get a better feed than you have for that kind of money. It appears that you have a 6F power feed. IMO not as good as an 8F, but comparable to a Servo ($880). I think, Jon can verify, that H&W sells boards for you feed. There used to be a guy around that rebuilt the boards. If you know someone that's good with electronis, you could also get a Minarik control board and install.
JR
 
UPDATE. I discovered that the phase-a-matic was jumping the voltage on the 3 leg from 120 to 160 volts and this is what burned out the dro. It only did this while the mill was running. The previous owner had the 110 outlets incorrectly wired to this leg and it burned out the fuse in it. Fix wiring and change fuse and dro is fixed. Now the power feed is another issue. Found a bunch of bad old cracked exposed wiring and think that burned out several parts on the board. Slowly checking and changing rectifiers and such and trying to repair. I will keep you updated. I believe someone mentioned a board update. Any info on this is appreciated.
 
UPDATE. I discovered that the phase-a-matic was jumping the voltage on the 3 leg from 120 to 160 volts and this is what burned out the dro. It only did this while the mill was running. The previous owner had the 110 outlets incorrectly wired to this leg and it burned out the fuse in it. Fix wiring and change fuse and dro is fixed. Now the power feed is another issue. Found a bunch of bad old cracked exposed wiring and think that burned out several parts on the board. Slowly checking and changing rectifiers and such and trying to repair. I will keep you updated. I believe someone mentioned a board update. Any info on this is appreciated.

I would disconnect the DRO and the power feed from the phase converter. plug them in a wall outlet, you are lucky you did not fry that DRO, no parts are available for it.
 








 
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