Thanx for the link, will try and watch it once our IT Dept. has lifted their ridiculous filters, hehe.
As for the Arduino idea, well I completely ripped that out of the entire process, just way too many an issue, I opted for "stirling"'s advice and went with the parallel port, as he mentioned that ModBus is not for the time critical functions, this resulted in me getting an additional parallel port (PCI card) but, i bumped into a "Mach friendly" BOB and although it does not have as many an input as I would like, it should work (well it works on the stepper's so far)
Still need to attach the following and test:
e-stop switch currently manually operated,
spindle control, also still manually operated currently,
flood control, also currently a manual thing,
end of job power cut system (2 channel 5v relay BOB) not yet connected; and,
six limit switches. the latter will just have to function on the limited input pins on the "mach friendly" BOB i got and I am considering placing X++ and X-- limit switches onto the same input pin with the same outcome in the brain (although I guess that I will only state one of the swithces, either X++ or X--) IF this does not work, well, I always have the option of the second parallel port with all it's pins still unasigned.
This should be in the worx very soon. I managed to salvage the PC "box" from one of the two that I combined parts from to get the one functional and working with mach. This "box" will soon house all the electronics as opposed to their current location attached to the rear of the machine on the stiffner plate of the X-axis. This means a total rewire as all the wiring that is done in the current config, is precise in length and sleeved, will it ever end? Probably not, but I suppose there is good in that too.
Wrote a brain for soft limits that worked like a charm, I just now have to write something similar for the hard limit switches and the rest of the control equipment (add-ons) and hopefully it will be as easy as it was with the softlimit brain
Promise to take some pics today and see if I can upload them, tried some before but failed, internet PC @ work= sucks big time.