Amazingly the new driver arrived today ( Sunday lunchtime via Dpd) so installed and tested .
Works a treat.
It is neat, isolated so should work with pwm staight from BoB , and has lots of options for trimming ramp speed, max speed max current so all in all I am pleased with it .

Having some difficulty getting the spindle speed control working in Linux . (am sure we will get there) but going back to mach tomorrow just to prove to myself that The spindle index function is still working OK there , in which case it should be configurable in linux.

One thing which concerns me and am not sure if it is my mistake , but if I havent yet switched on my computer but have switched on the machine , the spindle relay is energised ,
This means that the spindle runs with no call for it to do so .
Is this a general problem or is it me ??
Why is the spindle relay energised when there is no demand for that.????