Mesa VS Pico?

I am getting ready for my Hurco BMC20 retrofit.

It is quadrature encoders, analog servo amps and spindle drive, tool changer, coolant.....

From what I have gathered I should only need the 5i25/7i77 from Mesa

If I go Pico there are quite a few more components that are needed, card cage, motherboard, encoder reader, DAC card,......which adds up to a significant more cost.

Am I missing something on the Mesa or ?

I see there is support from both companies here. I just want to make the right step the first time!

I sell Mesa items in Europe. I never bought Pico boards although I had several times interested in doing it, also for a reseller point of view. Note that I cannot compare both products.

My comments (without any commercial intention) of the Mesa boards are:

The good things:

1) Material is really good (I have sold a lot of boards and until now not even one complain - and material is used by many people with different levels of skill)
2) Forum assistance (here) is also very good - given by PCW
3) They work. In were I work we already installed them in several industrial machines. Without problems.

The bad things:

1) Boards manuals are in my point of view bad. They are intended for the electronic experts, not for the normal Linuxcnc user
2) Availability - they have constant stock problems
3) Try to contact them - I am a reseller and even for me is very hard to reach them. I had problems in the past with clients due to the long delay on delivery (delay after delay after delay). There were several times that I wrote commercial emails to them - addressed to the correct persons - without reply for several days and in each of those days, PCW wrote replys here in the forum - this feels strange to someone that is reselling the products.
4) Although I do not know exactly PCW is probably the pilot, mechanical, check in guy, board assistance, and all the rest in the company. If he is not there the company stops what is something to have in mind if you want to buy boards and provide a long assistance to the machine.

By the way, you would also need a extra board (add on to the 5i25 + 7i77) for the input/output of the panel buttons. It is very common a 7i74.

I hope that I do not get in bad relation with Mesa for exposing my opinion.

EuSurplus

Thanks!

I don't know what I am going to do yet. I have a window of opportunity the next 3 weeks to bust out the major part of the retro done, so getting boards asap is critical.

Sounds like Mesa is having growing pains like any other company. But the products have been good to go.

Jake

I have bought from Pico Systems twice, With many years between them. And the Product seems a good one, as does the support from the Company. Unless you are a Linux(CNC) guru, you are likely to need support.

This Christmas I planned to Upgrade my mill from Mach3 to Linuxcnc as well. I wanted to try Mesa, so ordered some. It seems I got shafted. The only thing I have is an order acknowledgement. But it looks like I can forget about having the card before Christmas. Not a Word from Mesa! No shipping advice, no delivery schedule. In short: nothing but silence! And now it's far too late to Place an order With Pico Systems and have it in time. For that I can only blame myself.

Regarding support you will also get that from persons not related to any of these Companies whether you buy Pico Systems or Mesa. So the problem will be in case there is something wrong With the hardware that needs to be replaced. I have worked selling and supporting automation Products for decades and can tell you there is nothing so frustrating as a producer that collapses!

We are slowly catching up with store orders and should ship your order this week

I ended up buying Pico gear as they were a couple days to ship. I have my boards in hand. I just forgot to order solid state relays, oh well I'll probably need another I/O card. My tool changer is all pneumatic, so there is a bunch of outputs.

Be sure to get SSRs with appropriate current ratings. The Pico SSRs are only rated for 15 ma. I had to get some crydom SSRs rated for 3 a for some of my applications.

Thank you for letting me know.

But if you look at my address, you will see it is very unlikely it will Reach me before the holidays are over using the service specified. Then my Next days off are Easter...
In the time between I will most likely be busy keeping my customers happy.
I will have to go play With my (Pico Systems equipped) lathe during these days off from work then.

I am almost out of stock of all boards and already have a order placed to Mesa.
Delivery time will be no less than end of January - accordingly to Mesa (that can fail a lot).
Still if you go to my website, the stock is correct, so if it shows in stock I do have it and ship on the same day as payment arrives.
I do have in stock a few 7i76E that is getting popular nowadays.