Hi,
Im pretty new at this, just finnished a two year in CAM at a city college, so bear with me...
Ive got an old bridgepport. People always seem to replace at least the drivers if not the stepper motors when upgrading a bridgeport series II from the old boss6 controller to PC control. Thank goodness these old machines have great manuals. I've noticed that breakout boards (<$200) are capable of sending the same step/direction data as the SMD board usually receives on pins 13 and 19 from the ZDI board [and, otherwise, its two bit data anyway so you could use any of allot of things]. wouldn't it be possible to use the existing components from the SMD board down, and get computer controll using little more than a breakout board to communicate in place of the ZDI board? the principle of the question: why do we replace expensive parts that still work, instead of communicating with them? If anyone knows why its not possible, or with luck how it is done, please let me know. Thanks in advance,
Phooey