3.5" floppy to USB conversion?

[Gundawg]

Is it ok to change out the 3.5" floppy drive to a USB? I see the conversion drives on Ebay will they work? The machine has a Proto Trak A.G.E 3 controller. This is what I had in mind.

This is a new to me machine and a friend gave me an external floppy drive so I can use that for now I design on my lap top and it does not have a floppy drive this will work but I would just as soon change the drive so the machine can take a thumb drive.

3 ½ floppy drive Upgrade to USB flash drive | eBay

[reabdet21]

The floppy emulator in your link can only read a single usb flash drive as one floppy. There are other emulators that can format a single usb flash drive to emulate multiple floppies and you can step from floppy to the next floppy on the front of the emulator.

Flash drives are really cheap so the single emulator might not be a bad choice. You could also get a usb extension cabe and fashion a mount for the flash card on your control monitor. I like that option as well. Search the threads here for a descriiption of that modification.

Add USB to front console

[floppyemulator]

Hi CNC fans, here a new gadget for your old CNC Machines.
FlexiDriveMV-SD - Floppy Drive Update to SD card.
This is a direct replacement for the floppy drive unit.
You remove the actual 3.5” floppy drive, connect the FlexiDrive and that’s all.
You will not use floppy disks any more.
You will use a standard SD memory card. You can storage up 2500 floppies in a single SD card.
FlexiDrive