New-to-me mill retrofit (Mostly control electronic questions/confirmation)

Hey guys,

Long time reader as I waited for the right opportunity to buy a machine, which just happened. I recently picked up an obscure Folken M3400E minimill with dead drive electronics, which needed modernization anyways. The BLDC servos are unlabeled but if I did the math off the spec sheet, it's a 1000 line encoder. I have a set of AMC DR101EE20A8BDCA drives that I was going to use with the power supply, which, has a number of inputs. It would seem the step/dir would be my best choice.

At the moment I'll be using the also-supplied NSK Astro-E spindle, which I understand needs 0-10V for speed and driven through a couple 24V logic controls for direction and enable. In the near future, I expect to get/build a different spindle setup. I would like to retain/side mount the NSK spindle for where it's best (high rpm micromachining applications), albeit not to be used simultaneous the other spindle, so some sort of switch on the 0-10V would be a definite possibility.

Touch probing of some sort and tool length measurement are definitely happening soon. End goal would be to add linear scales and a 4th axis, but I'll address these later.

Questions:
1.) What control board is recommended? Starting off that's some limit/home switches, microswitch for tool length probe, a couple relays/fets to run the spindle, 3 channels of step/direction, and the appropriate controls for 0-10V spindle. But want to design around anticipated expansion.
2.) Does it make sense to bring the rotary encoder back to LinuxCNC or treat the drive controllers as "super steppers" since they have their own control logic?
2.) Any recommendations for a decent 0.6-1 kw 6k-10k rpm motor/drive combo (compact/lightweight) to belt drive a Finley er16 spindle that I got for a screaming deal? Ideally I'll have a 2 belt ratios for up to 15K (single flute small bit stuff)

Thanks,
Daniel

finleyprecisionspindles.com/36-air-motor...-belt-drive-spindle/
www.nsk-nakanishi.co.jp/industrial-eng/d...E_Rev_3_E400_500.pdf

I think I would suggest starting with a parallel port and cheap BoB. It probably won't be the final configuration, but it will get things moving while you work out which direction you want to take.
This obviously only works if your control PC has a parallel port, or at least a motherboard header for one. I wouldn't suggest choosing a new PC on that basis.

Thanks Andy, and hard to disagree with the incremental approach -- unfortunately my free-to-me computer lacks a parallel port, so I'll need to get a pcie parallel card (I'll double check to get the right chipsets) plus a BoB.

Not sure if there's a semi-decent equivalent to a parallel port + BoB other than jumping up to the ~$200 class for 7i96e or 5i25/7i76 combo. From my perusing that looks like the best set of combos to get me out the door, and then worry about whatever crazy expansion in IO I might need later. But, alas those are presently OOS. So here we are.

It makes no sense to get an actual p-port card (unless you think that you might want to use the Pico cards and drives)

So you could start with just a 5i25 or 6i25 and hook it up to a cheap BoB. They work perfectly well as a p-port-on-steroids.

But then you might decide that you want to go Ethernet. Or use something that only works on the 50-pin cards. The 6i24 is probably the best bang-for-the-buck as far as pins go (72 GPIO pins), but that is a different Mesa ecosystem.
(I have a 6i24 + 7i49 on my lathe, as I am using Resolvers)

Andy -- that's brilliant, greatly appreciated. For some reason it hadn't registered that I can use the the (5/6)i25 with a BoB rather than the dedicated daughterboards.

Let me have a closer look at the 50 pin ecosystem as well. The 7i52S looks like it's awfully close (minus the 0-10V signal, but a daughter-daughter board to buffer a pwm).

Have a look at 7i96.