Hurco KM3 Conversion HELP!

Hi all,
Have an old KM3 Hurco Ultimax II CNC 3 axis Milling Machine and am hoping to retrofit to linuxcnc.

Not really sure where to start here so could do with some advice on I/O boards etc. The Hurco is currently using x3 servo motors controlled by the Servomate (CMC) system. My budget doesn't allow me to splash out on stepper motors so I'd like to utilise the servos.
I have read some of the documentation on the Servomate itself and also a bit about linking linuxcnc to servos in the Documentation. However, being a bit green at this, I'm not getting very far.

All help gratefully received.
TJD

You wouldn't want to down grade a servo machine to stepper motors anyway.
Before you commit to a set of interface hardware, you need to identify what forms of feedback are on the machine, and how the servo-drives are commanded.
If the system uses ordinary incremental encoders and the drives operate with the common +/-10v command. A very good option is a Mesa card combo such as a 5i25/7i77.

Hi and thanks for the reply. Well I’ve taken the cover off the servo (E26-2) and found an encoder on the back (datametrics RC-23 S9992B) but can’t find any info on that particular type from google. Plus the wiring loom changes the wiring connections considerably making it more difficult to trace back to the servomate.
From the Sketchy hurco literature I have, I think the servos run off +\-12v but as yet I haven’t managed to put a dvm or scope on any of the outputs. I guess what I’m looking for is a simplistic overview that tells me which pins on the I/O boards should connect where on the servo-mate. Does such a thing exist or am I barking up the wrong tree here???

Did you notice this link?
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Servomate

Hi Todd, thanks for the link - yes I've been wading my way through that particular PDF for some time now but, as mentioned above - I'm not really getting anywhere. So far I can find a pin out for a parallel port using stepper motors but as yet I haven't come across anything similar for servos, let alone the servomate specifically.

+- 10V Velocity commands so a 5i25 7i77 combo would do, however, you need to look into encoder signals. I see no output to send encoder to Lcnc.