Bridgeport series 1 interact retrofit help needed

Hi all, as you can see i am new to the forum so go easy.
Im currently working at an engineering firm in the uk as a wireman/electrical engineer, we design and build all sorts of automation equipment.
We are currently on a bit of a lean spell in terms of work so before my boss mentioned reducing working hours i decided to convince him to let me retrofit one of the engineers mills.
I have a bit of knowledge on mills and lathes and a smidgeon of knowledge in programming plcs.

The project.

The machine is a bridgeport series 1 interact. It has 3 axis with Heidenhain ERO 115 motors controlled via bosch (Z15-1-240v) servo drives.
I have a pc i intend to put linuxCNC on this afternoon.
Now i know i need to buy some breakout cards from Mesa, im just not sure which ones i need. Has anyone done a retrofit on a bridgeport before that could point me in the right direction?
Also i would like to use the bosch drives and motors. Or would i be better off fiiting new geko drives etc?
I realise that i need to tweak the signal from the encoders some info on this would also be helpful if someone has experience of these heidenhain motors.

Any info you think i will find useful would be greatly appreciated, im hoping this task wont turn out to big for me which is my greatest fear (that mill i took apart boss... is now scrapyard fodder heres my resignation!)

Also the control im replacing is a Heidenain TNC145

firstly it should be a simple transistion , i'd keep the origional drives and go with either a 5i25 with the approprate servo addon card and perhaps an additional pendant card to give you additional io
or stick with the 5I20 and the interface cards , will make the transision so much easier .

see J T'S pages gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/index.html & his BP pages gnipsel.com/shop/machine-shop.xhtml

p.s has your TNC145 have gcode input rather than Conversational ? , i'm looking to convert one from conversational to gcode input over rs232 etc

take a look around and shout with any specifics you need , but just to outline .. keeping the origional drives an motors is an easy bet so long as their in servicable order

also check if the drives are servo's or steppers , and also the type of encoders fitted etc , have you the manuals ? , makes it so much easier !
iv'e done one with no manuals at all ,so it took a little longer !

Dave

Cheersfor the links Basher and for the reply
Im going to have a dig around and try and find a datasheet on the bosch servo drives as i have no manuals or info hopefully then i can marry up what cards i need and wether i can source some closer to home.
I failed on the first hurdle of installing linuxcnc this afternoon as the pc i had was naff so going to grab one from home the weekend and try again.
The TNC145 is conversational as far as i know the engineers operate it manually i.e using the control and not feeding it from pc! if that makes sense.
I think what i really need is some sort of schematic of a retrofit just to get more of an idea of the finished layout. Some more researching over the weekend i think as im not in work tomorrow

i have some schematics , but should not be difficult to track down , most of the information is the same across versions of the BP as far as
the cabinet is concerned , it's mostly the display consol that changes , see how far you get and shout later on and we can fill in the blanks .

it's best to draw most of what is needed , and JT'S web site has most of the info you'll need , but not perhaps identical etc ,
theirs also some basic configs to that should get you away .

theirs realy only a few wires to the servo drives to actualy interface with , + - 10v analog and limit inhibit switch input
encoders go directly to the display consol ,

i'd spend some time , figuring out what real switches you need on a control panel , i.e machine on , estop etc , then once you have that worked out
you'll have a good idea as to how to wire it , and whats needed , it's good practice !

Cheers guys,
got linux cnc running now and have just ordered 5i25/7i77 cards.
struggled for a few days until it clicked that linuxCNC was renamed from EMC2 searching for EMC2 came up with a wealth of information.
So im feeling a lot more confident now. Just trying to figure out what the pin outs are on the bosch drives
Thanks for your help and ill let you know how i get on

Hi

Did you manage to get your interact working with the mesa cards and linuxCNC? I'm just about to do the same with my Interact Series 1 with TNC 145. Be great to know how you got on.

Thanks

Tom

I intended to post this in this thread, but managed to start a new one for some reason!

I'm doing a Series 2 Interact 2 which has a TNC145 at the moment. Pretty straightforward for the encoders and axis drives using a 5i23 and 7i48 (4th and 5th axis planned eventually). It's the IO i'm struggling with as I want to keep manual dials for feed overrides and axis selects etc. If you wanted to just use the GUI and a keyboard / mouse it would be very easy.