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The DM542A can handle 50 volts so a good match to a 48 volt power supply. Quite a bit cheaper than the Lam DS1044.
I would not get the TB6600

The original stepper drive photos are in the 1st post.

At this point, I’m really looking for budget friendly. If/when I get the machine moving with the new Mesa card, I will look at upgrading the stepper drivers. The stepper driver power supply I have is putting out 40VDC. The TB6600 looks to have a rating of 9-42vdc and 4A but the motor lists 5A. Is that going to be an issue? The price is right. Would a DM556 20-50vdc and max 5.6A be a better option?

Drive pictures?
Motors look like 4 wire ones, so Bipolar, so even cheap China drives should work, those "TB6600" that use TB67S109 chip are pretty good and are the cheapest enclosed drives at about 10-15$ a piece.
If you just want to get the best stepper drives, LAM Technologies are the best i have used, but at 100$ and up a piece are not cheap. DS1044 should be more than enough for most hobby or semi professional use, and the above price is only when they are on discount at www.mechapro.de, and do not mind the disparity between the current ratings, LAM insist on printing only the real current they can do so 4A drive is the usual inflated 5.6A. This is very important as if you set them to 3A for a 3A china motor, that motor will be smoking soon.

Thanks unknown what thinkcenter gave you problems?

thanks tommy light   I will try the LED trick,   that sounds fun,   

I saw a map for the DB25 connector,   but then i saw another one that i thought was different.    AND should i wait for the BOB before i try the LED test,    Doesn't the BOB offer a protection/insulation service so to speak from having a wiring problem burn up the computers motherboard  ???

For tonight i am falling in a hole trying to pick a servo,   I really like the idea of the Technic Clearpath all in one servos.

There are a bunch available on ebay .     I have been looking at the NEMA 23 size for my Z axis .    This is for the Quill z feed, NOT the Knee.

So there are  Step and direction only  the SD series,   and the other is a SC series which have Software API control and Step and direction.
  i only have a tiny understanding of what i think Software API is,    and i am not sure if the C11G BoB will operate as a software API, ( I don't think it will ) 
But would there be any difference in the smoothness?   
     Step and direction seems like i can wrap my head around ok. 

Also am i being  a Backwards techophobe / ludite,   for sticking with the parallel port VS going with MESA cards?    It is not too late to change my system, 

Also another question  since the Clearpath servos seem to have everything But the actual servo power supply,    Could i get away with haveing only one larger power supply?

and a question. on power supply.    Does a step / direction system need a  special power supply;  Clearpath  specs a 75Vdc power supply.     but there is a voltage range of 24 to max 90vdc 

The step and direction signal are low voltage correct?    Then the BOB converts that tooo??  variable voltage?   or variable amps or both??

man i have some gaps in my knowledge but i am reading up,   and the forum is helping a lot

thanks
 

Well, not much progress tonight. I think I need to take a step back and better understand what signals linuxCNC and the Mesa card is producing for the PnCconf settings. Doing some research online suggests I’m not alone in struggling to get these undocumented stepper drivers to work. I foolishly messed with the output side wiring voltage divider this evening (without having adequate documentation) and the stepper driver released some magic smoke. Sigh. I am hopeful it was only the driver that died.

Looks like I’ll need to look at replacing the stepper drivers. Are there budget options? Motor size below.

rodw wrote:

qtdragon has a facing option built in. Why not use that?

I was not aware of that, thank you.

Sometimes you need to know where to looks in the docs. how to set a pin value from the ini file
linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/ini-config.html#sub:ini:custom

qtdragon has a facing option built in. Why not use that?

OK, yank an LED from anything you have no use for, stick one pin of that LED in hole number 2 or 4 and the other pin touch the metal shield on the parallel port, now jog LinuxCNC with the keyboard and watch the LED light up ... dimly, set a faster feed rate and it will glow a bit more.
Yeah, make a simple config before doing that and start LinuxCNC so you have something to jog..
Or use the config picker by starting LinuxCNC from the menu and chose sample configurations> by_interface>parport>stepper>mm or inches

Thought I'd chime in, there's also the option of a CPU upgrade, did wonders for the ThinkCentre I found in the gutter.

thanks,   it does seem to be ok.    it will be a bit before i actually have some hardware to connect.    but i have been able to move the tool head around and PLAY the original linuxCnc gcode that traces LinuxCnc on the screen and the jog buttons are working.    

i will catch up when i get some hardware,   hopefully  within a couple of weeks.   I wanted to start with a technic clearpath all in one servo, for the quill

have a good night, and thanks

I might not be the "best" to answer this, but since i see you're head first into self destruction, leme help :
-QtDragon does not care about your spoil board, nor does FreeCAD
-... i am out ...
Back on topic, i can not recall what i used some 15 or more years back for that exact purpose, but i am sure it was free and Open Source, but:
forum.linuxcnc.org/20-g-code/42707-g-code-generators
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Simple...NC_G-Code_Generators
And most probably this will do just fine
github.com/LinuxCNC/simple-gcode-generators/tree/master/face
and the bunch here
github.com/LinuxCNC/simple-gcode-generators?tab=readme-ov-file

For the life of me, I can not find ANY useful info on how to re-face my spoilboard. Sure, I would have to buy hundreds of dollars to get a program to do what Qtdragon should be able to do with out that. I have FreeCAD but, I also seems to not have the means to do this. Is there any one here that knows how to make a G-code operated machine simply go back and forth at a set high across a set dimension?
As you guys will have questions, I will be glade to answer to get this spoilboard faced. before I burn it to the ground.

Looks fine so far, move on!
There should be no issues with the BOB as long as your servo drives can accept step/dir control signals, or even quadrature or UP/DOWN.

thanks again for the help     this is what i have set up NOW,   exercised latency is as pictured,

Are there any Known problems with a C11G multifunction CNC board?    for AC servos?

thanks