Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Which stepper driver card to buy??

squidsrus85 wrote:

>[snip]
>I did a search here and found mention of a camtronics 5A board but
>cannot find it listed on their website., It looks to me they have gone
>with Gecko drives instead. I cannot afford 3 of those as much as I
>might like to.
>
>Oh, I will be using Mach3 on the PC. Have not bought it yet but next
>in line after the driver and power supply.
>
>

If you want to save a little money (assuming you have a spare computer
sitting around), you can use EMC2 instead of Mach.
<http://www.linuxcnc.org>. It's free, all you need to do is burn a CD,
or stick it on a USB drive and boot from that.

EMC2 can run step and direction off a parallel port, in addition to
having drivers for a number of other hardware options. You can upgrade
hardware as your budget allows, all the way to full closed-loop
operation with servos.

- Steve