Riverside192,
I was pretty much in the same boat with my old Hurco. The controls were flaky and although I could get plenty of parts for them they were expensive and still the same old system and the machine was rooted in 1985 technology. The Hurco BX upgrade was nearly $4000 and would only get me up to the mid 1990's or so-still old tech. I decided I was waaaay better off to just bite the bullet and upgrade to current level electronics. After looking at dozens of possiblities I chose the Ajax system. I could do a bunch of work myself (ie save $$$) and reuse some of my good parts (more savings). I elected not to go with the pendant and the handwheel. I think that the pendant would be very usefull later but I chose to save the $$$ for now. I ended up having to buy new encoders and cabling but saved more by just getting the parts and making the cables myself. Worked great! The nice thing about the Ajax setup is that you can always add/upgrade later when you have spare money. I bought a hardened, stainless steel, "everything proof" keyboard from e-bay brand new for less than $25 including shipping (it weighs 10 lbs!) and I can move it around on an extension cable and get about 80% of the fuctionality of the pendant for 4% of the money. Good enough for now.
The total cost of the upgrade was less than $3000 including the computer and has brought my machine up to current level performance.
Hope this helps.
Bill  |