-1 through -5 are the different versions of CPU boards. 1400-5 is the -5 board and it is silk screened on the board. If you have a CNC88 controller you do not have -5. I'm not sure when -5 came with the CNC88HS but if you have this controller just look at the CPU board and you'll know.
If you have the CNC88 contoller the best thing you can do is get the -5 upgrade. It replaces the CPU, video, keyboard & sys101 module boards, eproms for the XYZ axis and axis controllers for each axis. A Fadal tech told me it now includes the motherboard. When I had the upgrade done it was $2500 and I also got 4 megs of expanded memory for another 2k.
As far as memory goes, I have a lot of large 3 axis programs and 4 megs is enough for almost all of them. When programs get larger or I don't have time to wait for 3-4 meg uploads to the controller I run in DNC mode.
If you don't have large programs then 128 or 384 megs of memory will be sufficient and cheaper. |