Hello,
This is my first post. However, I am not new here. I have been on since 10/2012 reading about all great stuff that you guys accomplish with your machines.

After reading Chaz's Triac VMC conversion post, I decided that I am going to attempt to do mine. Thanks Chaz!

http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/8800-...near#post70146

I have a stepper one (not a servo), but the conversion should be close to Chaz's. The first thing that I did was weld up a stainless steel table on adjustable casters. The funny thing here, with all my great wisdom, is that I first made the table tall enough to fit the control box under it! Unfortunately, my thinking in the beginning was totally off. I didn't realize how bad it would be to work on a step stool to get to the machine. So I bit the bullet and removed the machine off the stand (what a pain) and cut the table legs down and re-welded it. It looked much better the first time.

A pic of the second version of the table...

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The control box...

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...so with the machine in place, I started my research on the following:
1) New steppers for X,Y,Z
2) Stepper drives
3) Controller
4) Mach 3 (reading that Mach 4 isn't not quite up to par)

What I have so far are the new steppers. I found ones with 9.5mm shafts that would fit right in. Unfortunately, I didn't check the shaft on the Z axis, which is 12.7mm and keyed. So, I ordered a new pulley to fit the new Z stepper. Given that the shafts are small and are not keyed, I decided it would be better to use a coil pin on the pulleys to hold them in place. I felt this was especially needed because of the weight and torque on the Z axis.

The McLennan RS steppers:
X = 34HSX-208
Y = 34HSX-208
Z = 34HSX-312

Below are the specs...

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Now I need to find drives that can do microstepping and a good ethernet controller (with sufficient speed and good resolution). I have read many forums posts regarding Mach3/4 with controllers such as CSMIO/IP-S, ESS (smooth stepper), PoKeys57CNC and many more! I have downloaded all the manuals and read them thoroughly. Some are very limited. I think the CSMIO/IP-S would be a good fit. I hope to hear Chaz's feedback on it and others' too.

Any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
--mike