Electrical Musings

In a response to Where the heck? What the he11? HUNH? on CNCZone I posted the following. I realized later that it is a good summary of my retrofit so I will repost it here. I am in the process of doing the same thing (a Bridgeport Boss CNC Retrofit). I have the gecko drives working, a Automation Direct GS2 VFD, and a power supply built with T1 (the 240 v to 120v transformer tapped at 40v). I already had Gecko 201s but the 203s would be better because of the auto short circuit protection circuitry. Just remember that "common" on the Gecko 201s is 5 volts to power the opto-isolator LED. Also just wire 2 windings of 4 of the stepper motors because the windings are in bifilar (which means that 2 windings are wound together). There are jumpers on the motors that show which terminals are the ends of the windings and then wire to the other side. I have 1 sigma and 2 superior and the geckos work fine so far. I used a C11G breakout board from CNC4PC which has some extras AC relays f

I have frequently bought from Enco because their prices are much better than other places especially if you shop from the Enco flyer. Recently a machinists vise came up on sale. It is a presumably Chinese copy of a Kurt vise and seemed a good deal. However, while all the "good" vises such as Kurt or Parlec gave some kinds of specs for repeatability, flatness or parallelism the Angle Tight II ads listed nothing but holding force. So I emailed Enco... to EncoTechandParts@use-enco.com date Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:49 PM subject Angle Tight II Precision CNC Machine Vise PN SU327-5893 Questions I am interested in the Angle Tight II Precision CNC Machine Vise PN SU327-5893 that is on sale right now for $159.95. I want to use it as an inexpensive CNC vise but there are no specs published in the flyer or the catalog. What are the specs for accuracy, flatness or parallelism of the jaws? Is the bed ground to flatness? Also, do Kurt style soft jaws fit the vise? I am sure with some of