Advice please Setup Breakout board and Smooth Stepper

My current machine is computer with Windows XP and a parallel printer cable to controller. The computer is error prone.

I have a much better computer that I will run Windows 7 and Mach3 on and have purchased a Ethernet smooth stepper and a breakout board.

My knowledge of electronics is very basic so I have some questions about setting this up.

Is the circuits PC, Ethernet cable to Smooth Stepper, cable to BOB then wired to controller or from BOB to stepper motors thus making the controller obsolete.?

The controller has a lot of heavy electronic gadgets inside and some fairly hefty cables leading to motors so can a little BOB actually replace this or does the BOB get wired in to the controller?

I would appreciate an explanation,

Thanks

Norman

The BOB isn't a replacement for the controllers/drivers. It is the interface between your computer and the drivers (and other things like limit switches and probe input etc) and provides connections to all of the parallel port pins and isolates the drivers (and other inputs & outputs) from the computer.

Thank you for that. My confusion comes from the schematics on line, which never include an image of the controller as a unit, just links to parts that I now assume must be inside the case.