Re: Upgrade from CNC7 to CNC11 worthwhile?
Sorry - just realized this post was last January. Anyhow still useful if you have your PC die on a cnc7 system.
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I have a cnc router with and M39/ cnc7 set up(which is relatively unusual in itself) and I am often mull over this question. But basically until something becomes unfixable I will likely stay at cnc7. As far as the PC is concerned, get the hard drive imaged asap. If that goes, you're hooped. If the PC motherboard goes it is an easy fix. I had mine go and basically I found a hobby computer guy with a computer that had an ISA slot and we dropped the card in, dropped the hard drive in and it was done. Really that simple!
I now also have an image of that drive in case it is the drive that fails and not the motherboard. I also bought a floppy emulator USB drive. It still holds the same amount of data as a floppy but with the reliability and convenience of the USB stick (and it at least loads fast on the design computer, but still floppy speed on the cnc7 computer).
If I had to upgrade it would likely be to one of the more recent versions that use linux but that do not require the new board. Those upgrades are just the software and should get you 75% of the way there at much less cost.
Oh and I should mention I have the m39 setup that had the control computer in the cabinet but now (unfortunately due to the switch of motherboards/pc's) has the computer hanging on the outside of the cabinet with a new hole in the cabinet to run the wiring out to the PC. So its a total cludge but it did get 15 year old tech working again in about 4 days.
GF
In case anyone is wondering, I'm the twin of the other gfacer on cnczone...