The servos will indeed accelerate them faster, as well as achieve almost double that speed. Problem lies with the pid tuning. Unable to get stable results with the accell set that high. Jerk is definitely a problem with that silly gantry. Servo continuous torque is 3.18nm. The highest torque I am using right now is approx 150%. The servos are rated for 800% for 3 seconds. Continuous speed is 3000 rpm, max speed 600 rpm (this would be 4000 in/min on my machine. Also, gearboxes and pinion are rated for 3800 rpm continuous, 6000 rpm cyclic. Torque on the gearbox is limited to 100NM peak (estop), 50NM accel, 30NM nominal. Having said that, I think I need to derate the drives. Crap...
Although I did achieve stability at the higher accell rates, the it came at the cost of accuracy and stiffness of the system. As in, you could push the axis with about 20 lbs, and it would move .125".
If I was able to go back to position mode(stepper mode for the galil), the servo drives can certainly handle those accels. With the adaptive tuning, it would sound a lot better too, while maintaining the best accuracy available from my hardware. Currently, the pulsing functions on my galil are toast. Don't know why, but I confirmed it with galil. No time right now to send it back, so I will stick with this mode until a later date.
What kind of machine have you used that has better accel rates? I would love to see/read more about it. One machine tool builder told me he was achieving 150 in/sec squared, but after talking with other integrators, I do not believe it.