Denford Novamill 1996 Conversion, Hints & Tips Appreciated

[m_c]

If you already have a Mach 3 license, then I'd suggest a UC100 as the easiest option given you already have a parallel port connection.
Off course, there is no real reason not to use an old PC and parallel port if you want to keep cost to an absolute minimum. Plus you could even use LinuxCNC with that same setup.

It all depends on how much money you'd like spend, how much you want to modify things, and how much time you want to spend getting the setup working (I'm generally wary of things like that beaglebone setup, as I've often found key details are missing, so unless you know the system well, it can take a good bit of reading up/experimentation to get things working).

[leadinglights]

Hi m_c,

Thanks for the info. I have about £100 to spend in the first instance but I will be able to commit more once I have got it up and running. The UC100 looked interesting but I think in the end that I have decided to go with the parallel BoB and spindle board and LinuxCNC with either a Beaglebone Black or Raspberry Pi - the BBB seems to be most often recommended but I have a couple of Pis hanging around. I have a Mach3 license but am failing to find the email with the license number (the machine that hosted it suffered from terminal disk disaster) so may have to ask Artsoft for a copy.

Mike

[Clive S]

Mike
"I have decided to go with the parallel BoB and spindle board and LinuxCNC"

If you go with 2 PP boards in a PC you would also be able to change the two pots (feed rate & spindle speed) to encoder pots and have them control the sliders on the gui in linuxcnc.

I have done this but using a mesa 7i92 (if I was doing it again i would use a 7I96). These get rid of the PP cards so are connected to the pc via cat5

Good luck with the build.