The web seems to think that MACH can even deal with a mix of servo motors and steppers on the same machine.

I suggest asking on a dedicated MACH3 forum.

Neil

Ok fair bit of wooly advise being thrown about here.

First off it's an Ex-trak so it has it's own type of conversational programming hence the reference to not liking G Code and although the machine is 2002 the Accurite controller is very dated and definitely last century.

To further explain motion control and breakout boards. They are different.

The motion controller which in this case is the Accurite will probably be changed to Mach3 or Linux. All this does is it's the visual part of what you are using, for want of a better description, the bit with the buttons on.

The breakout board is the bit that takes the signals from the motion controller and if we take Mach3 as an example its the bit that connects to the computer by a parallel cable or USB cable. At the moment that part will be done by a proprietary board inside the machine, special to the Accurite.

Good news is these can cost from £5 up to £150

Then in the case of Mach 3 that breakout board then puts step and direction signals out to the driver boards, one per axis and from those driver boards power is applied to the motors.

This applies to steppers and servo's alike but mostly the drivers are different [ some modern drivers can do servo or stepper ]

The stumbling block in this case that applies to THIS machine is that those servo drivers already fitted to the machine need an analogue input of 0 – 10 volts for control and not step and direction. This puts an extra component in the way, a board that takes step and direction and converts it to 0 – 10v. Many have been made and so far none have worked correctly.

Servo's can and usually are a bitch to tune depending on the drivers used and with the complication of the analogue input the modern consensus is to replace the driver with a modern unit but then it becomes easier is you then replace the driver and motor with a matched pair of modern units. These are intelligent units that can self tune.

If cost, experience and a learning curve is an issue you can always replace with three stepper drivers and motors.

Cost is lower as is the build because as I say fitting a new set of servo's and drivers as opposed to just replacing a faulty one can be a long journey for a first time conversion.

Peter,

Both those items in the links will work fine for the machine in question

Peter,

Is your KX3 a USB machine or parallel port cable machine ?

Mach normally doesn't know what switch has been hit because the parallel port boards are limited on pins.

However the Sieg KX3 in later [ yours ] Parallel port mode and USB mode has special breakout boards that once one switch is hit locks the direction pin so it can only jog off.

The PP card is a special serviced item from Sieg but the USB card can be bought on the open market.