One thing I didn't mention in my previous post, was get individual drives. That way should one die, you only need to replace the one. Plus it means if you do decide to upgrade in future, you could do it one driver at a time as funds allow.


As Gerry says, there are a few things that make drivers better. Some of them more so than others.
The TBxxxx chips output is directly proportional to the settings and input pulses. Up to it's maximum speed, it's still outputting in microsteps, which although makes slow speed movement smoother, it reduces performance as speed increases due to the slower nature of the microstepping output.

Geckos/M542 type drivers introduced microstep morphing. What that means, is as speed increases, the output gradually changes from microstepping to full steps. This allows for smooth low speed operation, but high speed performance is improved. I know Geckos have a trim pot for adjusting the speed at which the morphing occurs, but I'm not sure if others do.

Then digital drives brought in things like anti-resonance and stall detection. Anti-resonance is essentially morphing but done dynamically by monitoring the current/voltage being applied to the motor. Stall detection is just an extension of that monitoring system.