A quirk of the old Bridgeport R-series machines -- SOLVED!

[lloydsp]

I have an old R2E4, completely original except for the 3-phase inverter drive I added for the spindle motor.

The fear of all of us who run very old hardware is that there will be an electronics failure, and that parts won't be readily available.  After all, it's not like just buying another mother-board to run Mach-3!

All of the R-series machines have a quirk that can be confusing and scary.

Last night, while I was running a large plurality of identical parts, my machine began stopping.  There were no errors reported, no "crash" of the OS, none of the familiar "BSP" errors old BP owners see.  It just stopped.  It stopped about every five minutes of operation, but not exactly five.  Only a hardware reset would clear the problem.

When a completely un-indentified error occurs, it always comes to mind that a power supply problem is the culprit.  The old machines have large linear supplies, and they are usually well past their useful end-of-life when we HSMs get them.  So I felt "jinxed".

However, I remembered (in an epiphany!) something told to me only weeks after I bought the machine -- that the spindle-enable circuit is _hardware_ enabled by the one-shot lube system's tank float switch.

AHH!  I checked the lube tank, and (damn!) it was still half-full.  But I was "digging", so I re-filled the tank to the top.  And that solved the problem!

Apparently, my float switch is "sensitive" at about half-full.

LLoyd

[Bubba]

I'm glad you got it solved. It helps to bond with your machine more.. .