Bridgeport Retrofit

Hello All,


I have a Bridgeport Series 1 3-axis mill that I'm looking to retrofit. I've been looking at the Mach 3 PC based software but that is not set in stone. I know that there are other options that people are utilizing with very good results. My PC is already built and installed in the cabinet, it is a Windows 10 platform, and this particular PC does not have a 25-pin port. I believe I would be utilizing DMM
.75KW NEMA 34 servos and DYN4 Drives. Does anyone have a preference, past experience with a BOB or motion controller or will I need to utilize one of the newer smart BOB's?
Will the BOB or motion controller work with different software packages if I move to something besides Mach 3? I also would like to be able to run my machine lube pump, and mist directly from
the software, it this possible? Please provide you utilized options, would you recommend the components and why?

I have very successful retrofits using Mach3 and Mach4. I used the Welcome to CNC4PC boards even used Pokeyes board successfully. It is worth the trouble to go up to Mach4 but you would need to learn some Lua programming. Mach3 suffers from the parallel port and Mach4 is independent of the PC with pulses generated on the external board. I think much faster and cleaner with Mach4. My Mach3 Bridgeport continues to run flawlessly but they don’t really support Mach3 yet many users are out there to help. Look at the Mach forum that is linked on their website. I doubt you will find much help here on Practical Machinist but I may he mistaken. Back when I was struggling to learn Mach, the forum and Mach support were very helpful! Good luck!


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Incoming !!!

Forget about mach... look into dynomotion or linuxcnc. Little more effort to get things setup but will work much better

mmurray70 said:

Forget about mach... look into dynomotion or linuxcnc. Little more effort to get things setup but will work much better

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Mach3 maybe but Mach4 and the professional Mach4 are much more capable than the original Mach3. So we need to qualify our recommendations by which version and what peripheral boards are being used.


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the spin doctor said:

Mach3 maybe but Mach4 and the professional Mach4 are much more capable than the original Mach3. So we need to qualify our recommendations by which version and what peripheral boards are being used.


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Click to expand...

I've heard Mach 4 was an even bigger pile of crap then Mach 3?

Can you actually do a feedhold in Mach 4? That isnt delayed by the buffer in smoothstepper?

What is wrong with the original control?

All I can say is that my experience has been excellent. My Mach3 Bridgeport has worked great for about 15 years. I have a Smoothstepper and a Pokeys version on 2 different inventions using Mach4. I don’t have experience with other open source software. i would also appreciate other suggestions to investigate!


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the spin doctor said:

All I can say is that my experience has been excellent. My Mach3 Bridgeport has worked great for about 15 years. I have a Smoothstepper and a Pokeys version on 2 different inventions using Mach4. I don’t have experience with other open source software. i would also appreciate other suggestions to investigate!


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You seem to avoid the question worse then a politician.

Can you actually do a feedhold in Mach 4? That isnt delayed by the buffer in smoothstepper? Id really like to know if they fixed this problem or not.

mmurray70 said:

You seem to avoid the question worse then a politician.

Can you actually do a feedhold in Mach 4? That isnt delayed by the buffer in smoothstepper? Id really like to know if they fixed this problem or not.

Click to expand...

Name calling aside - I use Mach3 and am not using a Smooth Stepper on my Bridgeport. It does not have a feed hold problem. I cannot tell you about feedhold with the Smooth Stepper or Pokeys boards with Mach4 because the machines Prototypes are still being built. Checked Machsupport forum and searched for “feedhold problem” and found a large number of posts from 2017 back about 10 years but nothing came up after 2017. Maybe a bug got fixed.


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Mach3 or Mach4 work extremely well --
when You have the right hw and motion controller.

The pokeys stuff has about 1 ms delay aka its instant.
The Cslabs stuff is very fast, and supports just about anything and everything.

The only drawback is that a cslabs csmio-ips is quite expensive for a lathe with everything including mpg.
But you get 4 MHz timing, differential signals, 24V io, 6 axis, and true servo control even with 10.000 counts / turn ac servos, like mine.
1:3 belt drive using HTD8-30 belts, for 1:30.000 resolution indexing of the spindle.

My lathe refit and big steel scratch built vmc both run machx.
Both are industrial level machines -- similar to the Haas machines I sold in the past.
My lathe refit cost over 8000$ in parts, wholesale, as imported, I import myself (30 years china experience).


IMO.
You could probably do well with a chinese 3 axis offline controller for about 300$ for a BP.
No need for PC, sw, and hassle.

For the china controllers --
Some things won´t work, some things don´t exist, but overall the users of those are pretty happy afaik.

Machx is harder than the chinese box and will have more quirks.
But it is much more extensible, and very easy to customize for your use.
Linuxcnc is also very good, and pretty much easy for a basic 3 axis machine like a Bp.

I don´t have a recommendation.
If You can afford it, the cslabs csmio-ip-s and 220V ac servos are a great combo with machx.

Nothing anywhere will do better, and You get industrial level reliability, endless io, and all sorts of "right stuff".
With cslabs.
Support for linear scales, rigid tapping, servo signals input, all sorts of stuff that the linux and other controller guys won´t tell you about.
And excellent feed override and spindle speed override via analog log pots.
But it´s expensive, say 500€++ for a basic 3-axis mill.
Add couple of 24V DV PSUs at 30$ each, 1000 ferrules, crimpers, labels, boxes, din rail stuff, etc etc.. around 1000$.

BUT all other systems also need all the add-ons, it´s just that they normally don´t get mentioned or don´t get done.

This is Practical Machinist for those using these tools for work and profit.
My recommendation is based on a very solid understanding and experience over 17 years.

And yes, I was a big linux industrial user in critical usage, for a long time.
Serving 13.000 simultaneous users in 140 companies and about 10 countries, with pretty much great uptime, above 99.99%, and 5 million plus emails per month.
Supporint and hosting 70 critical servers.

I tried to give a balanced overview, with full credit to the competing tech.

Anything and everything will have issues.
The chinese offline controllers have a 3+ years old blog running 1000+ entries about bugs, problems, and updates.

Not saying machx does not have similar issues.
It does.
So does say Haas.
Gene Haas spends about xxM$ per year fixing sw issues in his controllers.
I deleted the details I know of as an ex insider.

My choice is industrial quality and easily extensible in endless ways.
After 17 years, that is what I choose to spend my money on.
After trying 5 different solutions in the past.

If You have the cash, the cslabs csmio-ip-s and ac servos with step/dir are the way to go.


You could even map your screws, if you wanted to.
I haven´t yet done that, so it´s what I don´t have experience about.

I´ll get to glass scales of 0.01 microns at some point.
The cslabs controller supports these according to them.

Yes, You can.
The feedhold is instant, with good controllers like pokeys or cslabs csmio-ip-s.

mmurray70 said:

I've heard Mach 4 was an even bigger pile of crap then Mach 3?

Can you actually do a feedhold in Mach 4? That isnt delayed by the buffer in smoothstepper?

Click to expand...

look into a Centroid control real good user friendly and a lot of options
i have had one for 10 yrs and had zero problems

hanermo said:

Yes, You can.
The feedhold is instant, with good controllers like pokeys or cslabs csmio-ip-s.

Click to expand...

Cool. Nice to know. So its just an issue with smooth stepper or similar boards?

Still a big fan of Dynomotion. It will do everything you listed in your post above. Has great support for reusing your existing drives, its reliable and priced decent too. I cant believe it hasnt become more popular then it is. Really like that it uses simple windows PC for interface, but actual control of machine is handled by the dynomotion boards in real time.