I am in the process of re-commissioning a older Bridgeport Discovery 308 that I converted to Mach3 several years ago. There were a few things that I did not like how they turned out on the original work I did so I'm trying to do a better job this time. I used a Galil PCI motion control card with a 64 point I/O daughter card added on. The extra I/O card uses two 50 pin connectors (32 I/O points on each connector). In order to make the PC motherboard carrier more modular I wanted to make a couple of short ribbon cables and bring them out to two extra PCI card slots.
I scrounged up a couple of blank PCI card covers and made up this simple fixture to be able to machine the holes for the connectors. I'm using 50 pin, 0.1" spacing, IDC type latching connectors that have mounting feet (so I can bolt them to the PCI card plate.) It took a while to find the connectors in stock anywhere. I did find them at Newark for about $10 each.
Anyhow, just incase someone else needs to custom machine some PCI card plates here is the CB file. I used a 3"x5"x0.5" piece of cast acrylic and split it into three NC files. The first drills the holes for the plate hold down screws and the counter-bored fixture mounting holes. After tapping the holes by hand I put the fixture back on, squared it up, zeroed to it and then machined the pockets to hold the plates. Note that the plates I found were all slightly different so the outlines I drew were designed to work for all. Then of course the third file cuts the connector holes.
I also 3D printed a 'U' shaped bracket to hold the back of the Galil card down. With the daughter card mounted on the PCI card and the mother board mounted vertically it had a nasty habit of becoming unseated. If anyone wants the STL for the hold down bracket let me know. It should work on any micro ATX motherboard as I used a couple of the board hold down screws.
