The smooth stepper is like a separate brain, it reads from mach via usb, gecko's, and all hookups are connected to simple breakout board, smooth stepper has pports which cable connect to the simple bboard's. The biggest advantage is that it has its own speed to run on up to 4ghrz or somethin like that, FAST ! Mach is set at 25,000. Mach does the math and sends streams of code to SS etc. and the servo's like the smooth fast pulse stream ! It will allow a small increase in potential speed, but I left it at 110 for velocity, even tho I got into 135 before servos complained.
there are a few disadvantages, NO backlash yet, It can be a bit touchy, yet is showing to be a very dependable solution when all the settings are proper.
ON a similar note, I downloaded mach 3.042.029 today and did an over install from v.020 and what a mistake ! SS went crazy, mach couldn't home machine, read WPO, couldn't probe tool. There were other problems but I just don't have a clue how to put it. I was quite surprised to say the least. I went a ways with it to see if I missed something and when machine started crashing into limits I had enough and went back to 3.042.020 and it looks like that cleared up the nasties. Any way I hope so !
8/02 EDIT Today I reloaded the .029 version and it seems sofar that I must have done something yesterday that messed it up, today it seems so far to be fine.
Don
IH v-3 early model owner