Bridgeport Series 1 CNC - back on line

[dansawyer]

About 3 months ago a Bridgeport Series 1 CNC followed me home. It was missing the head part above the gear cover. I found the missing operatoinal parts from a similar Bridgeport loacally and the missing covers in FL. I put the head back together, all together it took 4 trys. There is a small amount of castle gear noise which I will track down. The head and Ram were off for transport, I manged to reinstall them.
Someone had partially upgraded the control unit with a Pico Universal Stepper and 3 Geiko 203V drivers. I completed the wiring the motors and replace the ATX motherboard. I installed Linuxcnc and configured VNC to support a keyboard and display.
Configuring linuxcnc for the USC board was an adventure but thanks to lots of posts that came together.
A 3 axis CNC mill is now working. The linuxcnc program to scribe the logo works. (although it appears to be an mirror image, I will sort that out later.)
Now comes the next part. I have a couple of small parts I would like to make, but have no clue how to create g-code or set up a part - more posts.
Thanks everyone for helping this project along.

 

[markba633csi]

Have you checked out FreeCad? It has a path module that can generate G-code from your drawings. It's open source too like LinuxCNC
-Mark

 

[dansawyer]

Thank you for the FreeCAD referance.
This weekend I tore down the upper portion of my 2J head and replaced the lower clutch castle gear. I happened to have the lower castle gear from a collection of parts from a previous purchase. The head had been making noise and the diagnosis is that if there is play in the spindle then it is likely the castle gears. I don't know how much life there is left in these gears, but it is quiet now.