Bridgeport Series I CNC
A 1970s Bridgeport Series I CNC, retrofitted: the original steppers and controls out, AC servos and LinuxCNC in. The pendant is next, and it’s a bigger job than you’d think.
The Bridgeport is the backbone of the shop. It’s a Series I CNC from the 1970s, Bridgeport’s first small CNC mill, built on the classic Series I knee mill. I stripped out its original stepper motors and control electronics and retrofitted it with commercial AC servos, a Mesa interface card and LinuxCNC. It makes most of the parts for the projects on this page, from coil spools to clamp blocks.
Open software running a machine tool is exactly the kind of computing I care about. Nothing is a black box: every signal, from the jog wheel to the servo amplifiers, is wired through LinuxCNC’s HAL configuration where you can read it and change it.
What’s next
A handheld pendant for jogging and setting work offsets. I have the pendant; hooking it up means rewiring and tuning the HAL configuration, which is always a bigger job than it looks.