Hi all;
I'm new here, this isn't a troll and I can understand if there's some reluctance to recommend one vendor's product over another, but I'm having trouble understanding which of the following products works (and works well) with Mach3:

First the background: I bought a mill with a mystery controller, it worked fine until yesterday when it blew up a laptop (big bang, smoke) - so I'm reluctant to connect it to another conmputer, and have resigned myself to purchasing new drives/controller. This is a bench mill RF-30/31 clone with 620oz, 5A steppers. Existing power suipply is 30V AC to make 42V DC.

As far as drivers, it lloks like my choice is the Gecko G201's, nobody seems to have anything but praise for these.

Now for the Breakout/controller/etc. device.- and the big question:

I'm tring to figure out if Mach 3 works with the Gecko G100? Does it use the G100's pulse generator, and can it be connected via USB and all that? There are features that are nice on the G100 but I don't understand what software is supposed to be used with it, is there some kind of patch or post to Mach3 that enables the use of this device?

The other option as I see it is Bob Campbell's "Combo board". This device looks like it was specifically designed to work with Mach3 (and it's cheaper than the G100). However, the G100 has extra features and I never underestimate the advantage of OEM product integrated with OEM product- if both work equally well with Mach3 then I'd tend to lean towards the G100.

Can anybody help me get a clue so I can make an intelligent decision on this?

There is a lot of info in the g-rex part of this forum. It may be a good idea to start there.

Graham.

Just wanted to post a follow-up, after considerable research and some intervention of fate, I have ordered and running the CandCNC SuperCombo from Tom Caudle of Fourhills design. This is an absolutely fantastic system for its price point, intelligently set up, with excellent documentation, and customer support from Tom and Marti over at Fourhills has been exceptional. These Multi I/O setups are a bit of a challenge to set up in Mach for a newbie, until that "lightbulb over the head" moment when you find your way around the Mach port/pin screens and then it's simple.

Fourhills AKA CandCNC has a kind of confusing naming scheme for the product line, so double check to make sure you are getting the parts you need. Overall though, I'm extremely pleased with the system and not all of the vendors I've encountered on this odyssey have been as willing and helpful post-sale, so I seriously recommend anyone setting out to do a CNC look at Tom's offerings.