Convert from Mach 3 with OLD hardware?

Hi
I have been asked to convert two plasma machines that run on Mach3 to PlasmaC. There is no question about that but now I found that I cannot get 7i76E or THCAD10  cards from Mesa. The machines have a parallel port driven UP/DOWN THC controller. The cut level is set manually via a potentiometer.
The question is, is it worth the effort to convert to PlasmaC using this kind of hardware and if it is worth the effort what functionality will I loose?
Or does anyone know of an alternative to Mesa hardware?
 

Unsure of your location and the exact number of I/Os, etc, but maybe you could use the THCAD2 and 7i96s?

Also, there are plenty of plasmac machines being run on parallel ports. Mode 2 also accommodates external THCs.

Parallel ports are looking rather appealing lately, had to dust off some old PC's a few days back.

THCAD-10s and THCAD-5s, and THCAD2s are all available from Mesa.

Unless you need a lot of I/O, a 7I96S is better suited to plasma applications than a 7I76E.
(We will have some 7I76Es in a month or so but are still constrained by parts availability)

Hi Peter,
That is good news indeed. I will have a look at that combination as I don't have a lot of I/O. Everything is currently handled by two parallel ports. I will be in touch shortly.
 

Linuxcnc can run it just using parallel ports to. If you want to.

Todd Zuercher wrote:

Linuxcnc can run it just using parallel ports to. If you want to.


 

I know that very well. I was asking about PlasmaC functionality that I will forfeit if I use UP/DOWN THC on a parallel port.

Mode 2 has the following inhibited:
GUI arc voltage display
Height override
Void anti dive
PID control of THC speed - it does have rudimentry speed control.
 

Most of those are important functions. I will propose that we use the Mesa hardware instead.