Quote Originally Posted by mongoose View Post
Sparky, took another look at the mesa boards.. their website is a lil confusing.. once i figured out which ones i really needed ( by watching youtube videos and reading the forums ) it became clear... i will probably get one of their plug and go kits that has the matched pc card and breakout board... still considering the clearpath servos as they have the drivers built in .. then all i will need is the powersupply..

Joe
Those clearpath servo's don't shake me up. It appears the control loops are totally within the motor/drive with step/dir input, that means linuxcnc will not operate as a closed loop control. All your high end machines are closed loop controls for good reason. Hobby class machines more commonly open loop control. That said, its a personal choice, they will of course work. I would suggest you join and look around the linuxcnc forum, maybe inquire about the clearpath servos even.

That V2E3 I did had dugong drives, made by cncdrives. They were step/dir drives and mach3 was a open loop controller. It worked well BUT now days, after using analog 0-10V drives and linuxcnc for closed loop control, I would never remotely consider going back to the other method. I have done several machines since that V2E3.

Note: linuxcnc can operate in open loop mode but its not the preferred mode.