Bridgeport Ez Trak Sx Manual Dexterity
Bridgeport EZ Trak Vertical CNC Machining Center Stock. 30' CNC VERTICAL MILL, Bridgeport EZ-Trak SX WITH THREE AXIS. FROM 2-AXIS CNC TO MANUAL.
Ez Trak Bridgeport Mill
Hello everyone I am new to this site and new to mill work in general. I was able to buy a bridgeport ez trak sx from a local factory for a decent deal. The mill hadn't been used in years. When I wired it up the digital readout does not turn, and you can't jog the table etc. The lights in the back of the cabinet on the circuit boards r on, and when u press buttons on the keypad next to the screen you can hear it making clicking sounds in the cabinet. Also the green start button up top does not make it turn on. What am I missing???
When you take a screwdriver and manually push in on the contacts in the back of it, it will run forward or backward. So I know the mill is ok, just not sure about all of the electronics. You can even hear the monitor humming a little bit, so I know its getting power.
There has to be something very simple I am missing. Thanks in advance. If I understand what you are saying correctly it is the monitor that is not coming on? We have one very much like yours.
Ours has a cord for main power (230v) and one for the CPU (110v). Since you say you hear noise from the control I suspect your monitor is bad. These machines have a start up procedure you have to perform before anything will work. I do not know enough to help you but there are lots of very sharp people here to help you get her going.
A bit of advice if I may. Coming from someone who has worked on a farm and spent the last 30 yrs running drill presses and mills.go get your self a $300 DP from Sears. For drilling a hole in something you are cobbling together a little drill press can not be beat.
A 2 axis CNC mill while very accurate can be a pain in the ass just to drill a half inch hole in a piece of angle iron. Are you seeing anything at all on the screen, or does it just stay blank? There is a brightness knob on the control panel. You might make sure it is turned all of the way up and all of the cables are inserted tightly. Try dimming the lights in the room to see if you're getting anything at all. Those monitors are notorious for fading out to the point that you can't read them at all, but, other than size, they aren't anything special.
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A desk top monitor will plug right in. After going through several monitors on mine at work I modified the control box to fit a large flat screen. It made the machine a joy to operate.
Cbelt, I will get you pages to manual next week. I will be out of town for a few days. I would do this until then (from my memory): Follow monitor cord back to transformer hook up. Make sure this point is 115 or 120 volts.
This should mean ur transformer is hooked up right. This also gives 115 to the computer power supply. The motor drives run on a separate tap. You can directly plug in the CRT to see if it it working using an extension cord. There is a horizontal alignment coil on the CRT which usually goes bad.
You can open up the case and you will see signs of smoke on the coil. I just use separate color computer LCD monitor. The motherboard is old. There is a CMOS battery. These have a tendency to leak which will means you loose your CMOS. Google 'cmos battery eztrak'. Have not had to deal with this yet.
From CMOS it goes to either a hard-drive or floppy. Mine goes to to a floppy. This has all the program files zipped (or what zip was way back then). Figure out what you need. I believe these are pretty specific about program revision. I think it is related to the computer hardware and board revisions.
I've worked on quite a few Trak's both SX and DX as a Bridgeport Field Engineer for almost 10 years. ( now retired. ) I will give you advice as best my recollect because it's been a few years since the SX was introduced. EZ Trak's had 2 controls. An SX15 that came with a 386 processor and no hard drive (later updated ) and a DX 32 with a 486 and Hard drive.
As I recall your machine. It had to be started with a disk, however the troubles you describe appear to be in the power end of the machine and that must be corrected before attempting a boot. BEFORE GOING ANY FARTHER MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT CONNECTED TO THE CORRECT VOLTAGE.
Bridgeport Ez Trak Sx Monitor
If the machine can wired for a different voltage then you need to change the connection on the 9 motor leads then change the jumper configuration on the control transformer. I'm going by memory so if something seems wrong.get back to me and I will research it. The heart of the control is the BMDC control card, it's the largest card in the PC rack ( located above the magnetics ). Without that card you have no CNC but. You should still have a standard desktop screen display while it's trying to boot. The display will show memory, processor data, etc. If that's not there than get a local computer guy because it's a problem in the standard desktop.
Odds are ether memory or video card. Be aware that you could have almost everything removed from the cnc control's and that screen should still come on. Also be aware that you cannot upgrade an SX processor to a DX without either changing the BMDC card ( very expensive) or finding software that's compatible. If I were you. I would not be pushing contactors in because if you actuate a servo card you may find 'crispy critters' at the bottom of your control panel. The drives should have a red and green led.are both led's red?
That indicates they have power. Here is how I did my VFD. It allowed me to use the original controls. Instead of the relays switching the motor power, they are switching the 24VDC motor signal. I added a small box with a rotary pot for a frequency control of motor speed. I never actually use it since I would have to calculate the RPM if it was not at 60 Hertz. I am trying to figure out a good way to get the manual to you.
Scanning this is going to be very tedious with my scanner. I will send you the Power Distribution Section. This may be better copied from Kinko's or purchased from Bridgeport as yours may be different.
At some point, I will take out the guts and go to LinuxCNC. In which case, the BP stuff becomes obsolete.
The mill hadn't been used in years.CornBelt, I also have an EZ Trak SX and mine was sitting idle for a few years before I purchased it as well. I would be willing to bet that you have the same problem that I had. A dead CMOS battery. If this battery is dead, the BIOS settings are lost and the system will not boot up. The CMOS battery is attached to the mother board via solder connections. Mine was actually a stack of three wafer type batteries that were shrink wrapped together. The voltage of this battery should be 3.6 VDC.
Bridgeport Ez Trak Tutorial
You can un-solder this battery and either solder in a new one or you can wire in a remote battery. On mine I removed the existing battery, soldered two wires in place of the battery and mounted two external battery holders that each holds three 1.2 V NiCad batteries.
I wired these holders in parallel so that I can remove one set of batteries to be recharged while the other set is maintaining power to the mother board. This way I don't have to worry about losing the BIOS settings when the batteries need to be replaced or recharged. If you un-solder the existing battery, be very careful. I'm sure it would be pretty easy to ruin the mother board. Good luck, Ted.