S7 300 connected to old S5 I/O

This is one for the siemens crowd.
We want to replace a S5 95U connected to 3 banks of I/O I am not kidding when I say lots of I/O. All I/O are 8 bit digital input or output. Banks are approx 1.5m long.
Ideally we don't want to rewire the whole panel with new I/O.
It would be nice having a S7 300 take the place of the S5 95U.
The program in the 95U is a simple cell controller all in ladder so not worried about the program conversion.

Not sure if it is possible to use the old I/O ?

Siemens and Phoenix Contact do a range of connectors and interfaces for the conversion of S5 to S7.

I wrote a small note about it in the downloads section.

But the bottom line is: Apart from interim solutions where the proces has to run close to 24/7, it is not worth the effort or the expense.
In 99% of the cases, the smartest is to ditch all the S5 stuff in one go.

A 313C CPU is the closest match to the 95U CPU, with the same or more i/o onboard.
Personally I would go for a an IM151-8 CPU + ET200S i/o. That gives you the most flexible i/o + ethernet at the lowest possible price.

A small detail why ET200S may be the smarterest solution:

S5-100U i/o, which the 95U also use, have the terminals low down and at the back at the mounting plate. That means there is a risk that there is not enough extra wirelength.
If S7-300 i/o is used, the terminals are higher up and away from the mounting plate, maybe too far away for the existing wires to be reused.
If ET200S i/o is used, the terminals will be very close to where the 100U terminals used to be.

Thanks JesperMP good honest answer.
I was hoping to use the S7 300 to profibus to a new mould but looks like it will be the old hard wire way. The company (commercial manager) can't understand why we have to do away with working kit and replace with new working kit. Commercial managers are a engineer's worst enemy. I am red in the face explaining but they don't see it !!!

Ask the commercial manager if he is still driwing a 20 yers old car ?
If not, ask him why.

By the way, like you suggest yourself, another option would be to hook up the old i/o to an existing PLC via Profibus.
Again ET200S is cheapest, most flexible.