emco compact 55 mill. Just starting

Afternoon internet.
I have just bought this and now have the fun task of retrofitting. I'm wondering what hardware you guys would use. obviously due to the 3 phase steppers ill be using most of the original gear.
Main issue is I'm in UK and don't want to wait for a mesa card from America nor pay £300 quid for one. unless its worth it.
I see a few control board options

Option 1 EC500 remora about £100pros 24V card logic I/O easy. Cons pure china lottery
option 2 MESA 7I76EU about £300 Pro; proven card, known to work, can copy what people have done before. cons price / waiting time.
option 3 Parallel port Pro, cheap crappy board will get going quickest, cons bulky tower pc, will never be happy.

Control computer
Pi 5, from what I've read with ethernet connections theses are good. Pro small, Con dunno if still buggy
any core i5 pc Pro already have, can slice on fusion on same machine, could even set laptop up if it worked (power management fun). con bulky 

 Just wondering if I have missed anything or forgot, I did have a look for a guide to begin with but most just say MESA card

Parallel port, make the machine work, see if you can be content with what it can do, then decide if you want to upgrade.
Emco usually use parallel port, so the upgrade from parallel would be Mesa 7i92T and an IDC26 to DB25 cable, plug and play etc, etc.
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This is personal, so take this as you see fit, but i do not use RPI and probably never will, as 1. they are way to much fuss for everything, and 2. they are way more expensive than a good used laptop with touchscreen so when you add the screen and the other stuff needed it usually comes to twice more expensive than that laptop.
And that laptop will beat the living sh#t out of RPI for everything.
See Lenovo X1 Yoga, or Y370 or Y380, but beware that despite several of mine and other members here, yours might end up not usable, it is a risk, but for me definitely worth taking as i can find those from 120 to 220 Euro a piece in perfect condition.

Cheers, I appreciate the reply

This is the internet your not gonna hurt anyone’s feelings but that about the pi is what I half thought.

only issue with the parallel port is I wont have enough I/O.
Back of the napkin mathematics says 14 output 10 input but could be 6

Spindle PWM Dir Enable / Feedback (optional)
Step / dir XYZ 6 / 2 end stops each for some reason 6 (3)
Tool change step dir 2 / end stop / sensor to count tools for some reason
DC drawbar 1 /compressed air 1 / 1 for sensor

but could still get it working limited the re do the extras later.

just wondering if their was a better option

You can use more than one parallel port, there are add on card with two ports on one card, so there are options.
If you can stretch the budget, the Mesa 7i96S should be perfect, 5 step/dir, 1 full spindle with feedback, i think 11 inputs and 6 outputs but i had 7i96 without the S.
And very easy to wire in as it has terminals for everything, and another and, it has a free IDC26 port you can use to wire in if you already have something wired to a DB25 port, just needs a flat cable adapter.

If your spindle is on a VFD, you can save 4 pins by using mb2hal and Modbus RTU from a serial port (forward,reverse, PWM, at speed). By using HOME_SEQUENCE you can reduce the number of inputs required by sharing a single pin for homing. You also gain torque feedback, a more noise resilient system and much more accurate spindle speeds. You don't loose anything. People mistakenly think you need 0-10v spindle control for rigid tapping. But that's not right. In LinuxCNC spindle control is not real time and with rigid tapping, Z axis motion is synchronized by the spindle encoder.
But for the sake of a couple of weeks, why not wait for a mesa card?

sorry missed your reply.

its just bloody brexit
I bit the bullet tonight and ordered
430 euro will come in at about £440
I ordered 2 cards I have 3 machines in total, mill, router, lathe
gonna try to be cheap on the other 2 and share the same card and just make an interface plug. but for now only focusing on mill and maybe lathe.


m/c £250
card £220
...
future costs
dedicated touch screen laptop £180
New steel frame £100
MDI £200

I think I'll still land under my 1k budget