prt up grade

[dan_nelson]

I have a prt 60x120 standard that I bought used hopeing to upgrade after I knew what i wanted out of a cnc. That time has come Im currently using mach 3 and a ascension controller. The previous owner raved about the combination ,me not so much. I need to know the real costs of upgrades, SB control, drives and motors. might as well be alpha and add another drive for an indexer. Or keep as a standard and get a new controller and sell it and buy new?

[bleeth]

The decision on sell and buy new or upgrade is a financial one as well as practical. The decision is yours alone. As far as costs, give SB a call and they will be glad to help you. On the practical side the biggest issue with an up to date Alpha controller and motors on a PRT is the physical limitations of the PRT gantry structure. I would factor in upgrading the gantry and z at the same time, otherwise you really won't be able to cut much faster than you can now.
How you do that also gets down to your personal abilities. Some solved it by designing and welding their own gantry and others buy a PRS gantry and Z upgrade from Shopbot. Still others, myself included, bought some of the parts from SB, bought others direct or from other suppliers, milled some, and put it together for a PRS style gantry. Savings wasn't much and it took a lot more planning and time but for me it was a lot of fun.

[tverdin]

I have a 10 plus year old PRT Standard 60x120. a couple of years ago we did the V4G upgrade on it. I dont really remember what it cost but Im very happy with it. We do alot of stuff with ours. still using part works to do all of our files but in the next month or two hope to upgrade to aspire.

[CNYDWW]

At work we have a PRT alpha and i have a PRT standard with mach3 and G540 controller. Soon we'll have both at work (buying me out). We're facing upgrades soon. Don't know if we will go with a 4g upgrade for my old machine or upgrade the gantry on the alpha. Personally, since i operate the cnc's for any kind of complicated work, i would rather keep the mach 3 control system on my old one at least. It's probably just because I did the setup and built the controller for the mach3 system that i prefer it.

Regards
Randy