Closed loop servo questions

Hi,
I have bought a Bridgeport series II interact 2.
My current plan is to upgrade the control to either mach3 with Dynomotion kflop+kanalog, or use mesa boards and emc2.

Can anyone please explain the difference in the closed loop with using emc2 or kflop and mach3?
If I understood it correctly then the loop is closed realtime in the software in emc2.

But how is this better than with mach3 control?

Just trying to understand. I have no experience with linux or emc2, so I'm wondering if its worth it to learn all this stuff.


Dan

I made several machines using Mach3 and currently I am doing with Linuxcnc (former EMC2).

My experience with Mach3 is not so bad. It has a good user interface (you can design a good screen, easily) and there is some hardware available for it. I used the parallel port and also the smoothstepper. The parallel port with good results the smoothstepper with a lot of bugs.
In Mach3 I had/I have random behavior sometimes, and there are many things that simply do not work out. Depending on the complexity of the machine Mach3 can be a solution, as it will be more easy to implement. I think (not sure) that simply there is no possibility of adding full feedback to mach3 from the encoders without very expensive hardware.

Now, in linuxcnc, and until now, all is more difficult to implement (I am talking from my experience), and without this forum, for me it would be almost impossible to go forward in almost all things that I need to do. I am currently doing a machine with mesa software (full closed loop on the software) and at the same time with the parallel port.
It is more difficult to implement everything, but until now, what is implemented is stable - and for a machine - that is all that matters - stability, for for me, I really thing that the time and money that I am speeding will turn out as a good investment.

Thanks for replies.

So there isn't really any performance difference in accuracy if closing the loop in either the software or hardware.
Stability issues with windows is a really good reason to chose linux imo.

andypugh: Yes they are servos. There are interacts with Boss controll that use steppers. Mine is Heidenhain.

Heidenhain are usualy servo's , so if you want to use Linuxcnc , go for using the origional analog servo drivers and use a mesa 5i25 and servo add on interface card

the Kflop would need the additional kanalog interface board , then either use Mach3 or Kmotion software , it would not be able to use Linuxcnc