10.5 x 25 cnc plasma table retrofit

So your recommending the mesa 7i96s a 7i85 and a 7i83 and THCAD and I could use the stock motors see if they work with this combonation of cards then upgrade down the line if I decide I want better performance. Would this combo of cards support large servo motors and offer great motion control? I included a photo below of the rails turns out I actually have enough to make a 50 foot long cnc. I don't think I will ever need to cut 10 sheets In one go but i was thinking of making 25 foot a water table and keep the other 25 foot to plasma cut beams and maybe a large rotory axis. May aswell set it up am I right? 

Do you have any recommendations for wiring this whole thing? Should I mount the controller with the drives on the gantry itself? Or do I run wires threw the cable chain from controller to drives. I have concern the ht2000 will put out alot of high frequency interference. If I keep the original motors and drives I would like to keep atleast the drives mounted to the gantry so I can use the original wiring that is rf sheilded. Is there any parasitic loss on long distance runs that should be avoided by mounting controller to gantry. I think I would prefer not to mount the computer to the gantry it seems dangerous to me, but I might require a long range or wireless pendant otherwise. Maybe it's better to keep it all on the gantry. I still have not decided. Do you have any recommendations for sources for high rf sheilded cable? And what is your preferred type of wire. I've used alot of cheap wire before and had it corroded apart on other projects. Leading to endless wiring issues, I am building this machine In hopes I will run it often I want reliability and my shop is a hard atmosphere for a machine lots of dust and humidity/water from leaks.

If i was to mount computer with controller to gantry would you recommend going with a sealed industrial fanless type computer I found a few on ebay for a couple hundred bucks. My last plasma table is a 4x10 I built with mach 3 and windows 7. I found the operating system to be highly unstable computer would crash or freeze, and I seen what kind of damage was done by the plasma dust. My other concern would be for shielding I here that these style of computers have a increased protection against rf interference and I know that the ht2000 will put out alot compared to my cheap everlast 102i blowback style. There is a few features I would like to have aswell on the Linux cnc side of things do you know if I can set up plate centering? Possibly amperage adjustment remotely. Do you have any other recommendations for scripts I can add to really trick this puppy out. I am new to linux cnc but trying to obsessively learn as much as I can, it seems like the best option open source.

I also have a 1980s toyoda horizontal machining center complete with pallet changer and tool changer. Would this be another machine that's a good candidate for retrofit is linux cnc able to control the tool changer and pallet changer? Can you account for tool wear in Linux cnc? It's currently on a fanuc 11m control. It's a beast of a machine just little lacking in capabilities compared to modern machines and all coding is done by hand due to lack of memory.

Not much progress made on plasma table today but started welding up a horizontal sheet metal rack based on lazer bros plans. I've been storing verticaly and it's a pain and dangerous to set the sheets down on the table like that. I've had my guy cleaning the rails on the plasma table using a wire wheel then when I set them all up going to try to stone any high spots. Do you know of any good literature to study up on for setting up these gantry style tables? Specificly in keeping the rails parallel and level. I'm sure there's tricks with lasers and string bobs etc.

Okay so im putting together a parts list to get started with this build. I put power to the driver box, tripped the contactor with a screw driver and a green light comes on the power board and fan runs. im not sure what else I could do to test it besides connecting the burny 10 back up.
So far in my parts list I have

7I83 Analog output/ analog servo interface
7I85S 4 Channel encoder, 8 differential output 1 channel Serial RS-422 interface
THCAD-300 High isolation A-D accessory (Go to replacement: THCAD2)
7I96S STEP/IO Step & dir plus I/O card

I am going to assume that I can hook straight up to the raw arc voltage of the hypertherm ht2000 with the thcad-300. Is there any advantage to a voltage divider board other then the potential risk of electrical shock? Will I need a power supply to go along with these boards? do you have any recommendations for a reliable one on my previous build I used a cheapo china one and the fan stopped working a while ago.