Quote Originally Posted by Ady37 View Post
Thanks for the info on the motion control and KFlop boards I will do some research on that tonight. I guess the big professional gear runs off closed loop then?

Some do. The thing is that most professional high end machines will also run servo motors so you need the encoder feedback anyway. The feedback is mainly through the encoder on the motor with the linear scales in parallel.

Looked at length at the KFlop and it is a very nice piece of kit. Like you I wanted to tie in the linear scales with the stepper motors to have absolute accuracy.

Unfortunately for the cost and the faffing with coding lead me to use a different solution.

Considering that stepper motors are extremely accurate in their stepping, it is not usually worth the extra expense on the servo based system for hobby work.

There are also steppers that have feedback on them and know if the steppers have lost steps due to mechanical issues. See the "Leadshine hybrid servo"