Weiler DZ26 Millturn Conversion

There seems to be a general dislike for PCI-E cards?
In theory i should be less issues in communication between PC and card and almost no jitter/latency between both.

The only ones disliking it are persons who do not bother to read the manual and move jumpers around with no idea of what and how that effects the card.
Probelem is, those persons make the most noise.
Again, i have in use over 70 or 80 (probably more) of Mesa boards, be it PCI or PCI-E or Ethernet, never had a single issue, ever, for over 10 years (probably more), all those machines are in use daily in production, not hobby use.
And i have no affiliations with Mesa, i have to pay at least twice the listed price to get them, and it is bloody worth it as i set them once and can sleep at ease knowing they will not fail, ever.
By now it has gotten to the point where if and when any fail, i will have a party.

I used the 5i25 +7i77+7i84 on my Maho, as the Ethernet cards were not yet available. Used the 7i95 on my mini lathe, and a 7i92+7i83+7i84+7i85+7i73 on the Schaublin.

As Tommy said, forget performance differences between PCI and Ethernet cards, that wont be an issue.

I hate jogging on a touch screen. You are looking at the part, probe, whatever and reaching to touch a none tactile feedback peice of glass with a greasy finger, trying to tap through pulse by pulse. Same with feed hold, cycle start, coolant start etc. It is a personal choice.

Got a 6i25 and 7i77d in front of me and i am ready get things started.
I got myself an old office PC to get things going and will migrate to a DIN Rail PC with a proper touchscreen once everything's running.
A few questions straight after studying the 7i77 manual and ripping out lots of cables from the machine.
Can i sink solenoid power straight to the 7i77? Does it have some flyback diodes integrated? Is there a max current rating for those sinking inputs? Original Siemens IO cards had direct connection to all solenoids.
Best,
Lukas

The 7I77/7I77D have no flyback diodes but they do have Zener --> gate
slew rate limiters. These dissipate the inductive energy in the output MOSFETS
This is only good up to 60 mA or so. If the solenoids have more that 60 mA  current draw,
they must have flyback diodes (and they must draw no more than 350 mA)

Thank you, i checked on the machine and you are right, they have integrated flyback diodes. I will check wether they draw more than 350mA (i can't imagine they do)

Another question:
Since i have the full documentation fory old siemens 810t control i can check all sorts of servo calibration values from the original machine data. Certain 8-bit codes can be decoded using the docs. You i try using that method or would you do it from scratch as it it is a new machine?

I better don't say it out loud, but it all looks pretty straightforward to me

The I/O board is almost the same as the 7i77, theoretically i can connect 24V power, servo control and all IOs with original wiring and get straight into configuration mode.

Reality check incoming....