BishopCNC15 wrote: I looked into the Mesa Electronics boards. So if I use a 5i25 and 7i76 then my PC will still be communicating with my drivers with step+direction right? I've heard there's a bandwidth limitation doing things like this.
With the 7i76, which is a dedicated step/dir board, yes. But there are many other options. The 7i77, for example, is designed to drive servos by analogue voltage command. Old-school but very effective inside a feedback loop.
My own mill, as a random alternative example uses analogue position feedback (Resolvers) into a Mesa 7i49 card, but the servo drives are 8i20 which take phase angle and current commands in a serial binary format.
Since the budget is fairly high, what about EtherCat or something similar?
That is certainly an option, and one that has worked well for others.
You could also look at
General Mechatronics
for a modular system with good LinuxCNC support.
