Elumatec SBZ 130/01 retrofit

I understand, as far as what I've seen from the manuals and such the fielbdus is proprietary and as per an elumatec engineer's review himself, the system wont even enable itself until all ferrocontrol only components are connected to each other, so theres no point in a half swap to third party, might as well just switch out the entire drive system, (though the only obvious issue is with the PC here, the guy from elumatec also said the same 28k USD for a new PC, so safe to say thats not an option)
Thanks for the advice, at the very least I did get a pretty decent bit of knowledge about linuxcnc which was quite interesting, and hopefully someone else with the same issue can use this information to save some time.
As for our next course of action, we'll start looking into retrofitting kits and other controllers like mach3, if anyone has any other suggestions or reviews on good companies with full retrofitting kits (drive system + controller etc) I'd appreciate that a lot.
Bit worried about the price for the spindle especially, but I've been told there are some pretty decent chinese companies with cheaper motors, and another option for the axes is just choosing a lower power drive and using a gearbox to match the necessary torque, so I'll keep looking.


edit: just went through the document and found this section, might be relevant:
Complex automation technology plants require an effective and radical possibility
of monitoring, i.e.
• insight into the system, in particular the retrieval of conditions
• influencing, intervening in the system
under various conditions:
• initial commissioning
• plant-specific basic parameterization
• subsequent altering or optimization of the settings
• service and regular maintenance
• malfunctions
For this purpose, two interfaces are available to the DARC system as a partial
component:
When it is integrated into a CAN or Profibus-DP-fieldbus system the DARC system
can be parameterized, tested and commissioned via the serial service interface RS-
232.
When it is integrated into the ferrocontrol CNC fieldbus system the DARC system
can be parameterized, tested and commissioned via the fieldbus.
The following chapters describe all the procedures and methods, depending on the
type of fieldbus used, necessary to operate the DARC system with the appropriate
service interface.

 

the FBUC is also ferrocontrol, its a fieldbus interface card with some I/O expansion cards connected to it,
couldnt find any sort of control in/encoder outputs on the drives, they just connect to the supply module that connects to the PC+fbuc, so looks like thats the only way to control/recieve feedback from them

some more information on the connections between supply module and drives, looks like the parallel bus is how drives get control from the fieldbus.
   

regarding the canbus and profibus, the sections are mentioned in the document but listed as "in preparation" and empty, so I'm guessing maybe they initially planned to add but later on never really followed through?

I recieved an offer from a company "paycnc.com", heard theyre fairly reputable when it comes to retrofitting kits
the one they've shown me is an entire GSK kit, GSK 980MDi controller, appropriate specs axes and spindle ac servo motors with drives + mpg and cables at just shy of 6000 USD.
Any ideas if this is a good route to go down?
Also the motors all have inbuilt incremental encoders, the axes are fine but im worried about the spindle orientation for ATC, cant really see any easy way to do a homing run or something to get it in position for the tools to slide in/out

I had a look at that too, but it seems to be quite limited in functions just for jogging and only one axis at a time..., my teammate is having a deeper look into it though maybe he might find something, thanks for the tip!