[cuemaker1]

I have a techno servo gantry system. It uses the old ISA card and runs in dos.
1st question:
Should I upgrade to PCI and run in windows or stay in dos??
2nd question:
Techno wants $1800 for the upgrade. Is there a company that makes a useable cheaper card and/or upgrade that will work with the techno.
3rd question:
I have a indexer head and extra servo motor. I need a amplifier for my fourth axis. Does anyone except techno make a amp that will fit my box?

Thanks, that's enough questions now... any help will be appreciated

[mikkojay]

Ever make a decision on this one? I was/am in the exact same situation. The DOS works, bit it kinda sucks. I guess it is OK for free, though. If I was going to spend even over $1k, I'd probably just go with a completely different controller & mach3. I don't use my machine enough to make it a big deal, actually I might sell it on ebay if I don't pick the hobby back up soon.
-Mike

[cuemaker1]

Which model do you have and how much would you be asking...???

[mikkojay]

I don't have the specs at hand, I will post them later-
For the meantime, I did find a post that has a nice picture of the table:
HERE

I would likely sell it on ebay with a reserve of $2k. If someone showed up on my doorstep with 2500 I would sell it. That's not bad considering you get a complete up and running rig for not much more than Techno wants for a PCI card!

A buddy of mine needs a new sign for his boat- I better make it before I sell this thing. Let me know if you want more pics- do a search on my old posts and you might be able to find more.

Thanks, Mike

[joejared]

It just occurred to me that techno-isel could EASLY provide backwards compatibility with older cards, but chose not to, to force you to upgrade. The newer cards are lm629 compatible, and use pwm conversion instead of DAC conversion, but for all practical purposes, other than issuing a port12 command on initialization, it should just work. In any case, if you'd like a linux version of what I've developed for my own products, let me know. It's not geeksquad g-code, but it works rather nicely. Here's a Youtube video you might find at least only moderately boring and the software's about 3 weeks in developement.