Help connecting servos to breakout board Mach3

[hanermo2]

Highly recommend csmip-ip-s, and maybe modern import step/dir servo drives instead.
Or use the drives you have in step/dir mode with the csmio-ip-s.
Very easy, fast, good, done.

I have seen lots of threads about analogue-> s/d conversions.
Past 14+ years.
And some few really clever people got them to work really well (Mark V. was one, 8+ years ago).
Via custom electronics they made (cheap, but I could not design them), lowpass / bandpass filters, tuning, etc.

Look;
You have a bob .. a converter .. a drive .. tuning .. motor.
Thats 4 pieces of kit in a row, and no easy way to detect noise, hum, non-linear response, accuracy etc. etc.

Alternatively, a csmio-ip-a would drive them directly.
And one of the smartest most capable guys I know uses it with great results. Real VMC, with auto toolchanger and analogue servos.
He also has an csmio-ip-s like mine, on a small lathe.

I am pretty sure the drives You have can work extremely well.
Could.

But I also think that You will suffer and struggle to get them to work, and the results are likely to be far from close to optimal - vs what they could do technically.
Usually, bobs have electronic problems of all sorts.
Limited speeds, responses, noise, non-linearity, functioning etc etc. and these mostly only appear at high speeds aka servos.

After trying 12+ combos for 10+ years, I ditched all that and imported new ac servos myself and cslabs controllers.
Right choice.

You can get new small 400W servos for 290€/axis, more or less, EU, all in.

[Agathon]

Highly recommend csmip-ip-s, and maybe modern import step/dir servo drives instead.
Or use the drives you have in step/dir mode with the csmio-ip-s.
Very easy, fast, good, done.

I have seen lots of threads about analogue-> s/d conversions.
Past 14+ years.
And some few really clever people got them to work really well (Mark V. was one, 8+ years ago).
Via custom electronics they made (cheap, but I could not design them), lowpass / bandpass filters, tuning, etc.

Look;
You have a bob .. a converter .. a drive .. tuning .. motor.
Thats 4 pieces of kit in a row, and no easy way to detect noise, hum, non-linear response, accuracy etc. etc.

Alternatively, a csmio-ip-a would drive them directly.
And one of the smartest most capable guys I know uses it with great results. Real VMC, with auto toolchanger and analogue servos.
He also has an csmio-ip-s like mine, on a small lathe.

I am pretty sure the drives You have can work extremely well.
Could.

But I also think that You will suffer and struggle to get them to work, and the results are likely to be far from close to optimal - vs what they could do technically.
Usually, bobs have electronic problems of all sorts.
Limited speeds, responses, noise, non-linearity, functioning etc etc. and these mostly only appear at high speeds aka servos.

After trying 12+ combos for 10+ years, I ditched all that and imported new ac servos myself and cslabs controllers.
Right choice.

You can get new small 400W servos for 290€/axis, more or less, EU, all in.

Thanks for the reply. I've been busy with other stuff recently and haven't had much of a chance to do anything about this yet. However, I think I'm convinced by Clive's argument (made on a number of occasions) that I would be much better off using Linux CNC for my machine. At the moment I'm going to play with the stepper motor set-up and Mach3, but I'm going to get up to speed with LCNC ASAP and then invest in the appropriate Mesa boards to drive the servos.

Out of interest, can you give me a source for the 400W servos you mention?

David