Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
we have a Bridgeport Series II Special milling machine in our powerplant machine shop. It sees light use and can hold tenths. We do certain light production runs of replacement parts for some of the plant equipment. This work requires using a large Troyke rotary table to do circular milling for certain parts with about a 25" radius. This same job requires multiple setups.
We do some other jobs that are a little less complex, but still require multiple setups and some fixturing.
As a result, we are considering converting this Bridgeport Series II mill to a combination manual/CNC machine tool. It presently has the 2 HP varaible speed head, and Accurite 2 axis DRO on it. This mill is our only milling machine and we do not have the shop space to put in a dedicated CNC machine. As a powerplant maintainence shop, we would also have a hard time justifying the expenditure for a dedicated CNC machine. We get a good deal of use out of the Bridgeport as a manual mill for one-off kinds of jobs. However, the profile and circular milling jobs along with the light production work have me considering the CNC conversion.
Has anyone got any opinions or 'druthers as to what they would recommend ? Our local Bridgeport dealer offers a retrofit that includes ball screws and Accurite CNC. Another firm is offering a conversion built by Centroid. Anyone have experience with either of these retrofits ?
I would appreciate any information based on experience, or suggestions or recommendations which anyone may have to offer.
Thanks-
Joe Michaels
We do some other jobs that are a little less complex, but still require multiple setups and some fixturing.
As a result, we are considering converting this Bridgeport Series II mill to a combination manual/CNC machine tool. It presently has the 2 HP varaible speed head, and Accurite 2 axis DRO on it. This mill is our only milling machine and we do not have the shop space to put in a dedicated CNC machine. As a powerplant maintainence shop, we would also have a hard time justifying the expenditure for a dedicated CNC machine. We get a good deal of use out of the Bridgeport as a manual mill for one-off kinds of jobs. However, the profile and circular milling jobs along with the light production work have me considering the CNC conversion.
Has anyone got any opinions or 'druthers as to what they would recommend ? Our local Bridgeport dealer offers a retrofit that includes ball screws and Accurite CNC. Another firm is offering a conversion built by Centroid. Anyone have experience with either of these retrofits ?
I would appreciate any information based on experience, or suggestions or recommendations which anyone may have to offer.
Thanks-
Joe Michaels