Ive been researching for what seems like months before taking the plunge and buying stuff. Everytime I think im all set I find some other quirk or that something isnt going to work the way I expected. Orig i was kinda set on the DMM servos, now after crunching the numbers on cost and speed/resolution, i am kinda leaning tword steppers. I think rapids over 200ipm would probably destroy the dovetail ways if they are adjusted correctly? The 5k DMM servos gave me something like 350ipm with the biggest gear reduction that would fit under the top surface of the table. Onto my issues:
Since this is still a manual machine and I do a lot of manual work on it, I obviously want to retain that capability. The cost of a quality DRO and power feeds is what led me to the conversion instead. So with the stepper drives on "disable" in Mach, my research shows that the DRO will not keep track of its position? Would be the same if I went with servos correct? Or is there a way to keep power to the encoders still with the drive disabled?
I initially planned on getting the ether-mach motion controller, but am really leaning tword the HICON integra now. I could hook up glass scales and of coarse paying the xtra fees, have the DRO read the actual table position all the time. With the added benefits of error correction and a few other things.
Next area of confusion is if I keep the plan of stepper motors (nema 34 around 1000oz/in) it seems most are using 1:1 on the drive pulleys and using microstepping for better resolution. Too much misinformation on the internet for me to make a certain decision on whether its better to do that, or use a reduction and deal with the slower rapid speed. I am not a production shop, just a hobbyist. So bragging rights on super fast rapids mean absolutely nothing to me. Is 100ipm really that slow? This is getting lengthy so I will cut it here