Zaffar, would you rate the Rutex and DG2S type drives in the same league as, for example, the Bosch?
I certainly wouldnt, no experience with Rutex but I have helped a friend set up a lathe with DG2S.
Dont get me wrong, the DG2S are excellent drives, just I dont think they are in the same class as the more Industrial rated ones.
Regarding the controllers, the problem I see with all the ones you mention is they are 5v I/O, that means you either have to convert the rest of the machine to 5v or have some conversion of the 24v to 5v just before it enters/leaves the breakouts. 5v can work well but as you know noise can be an issue if you are not careful with routing/shielding/grounding. 24V is much better and is obviously the reason the vast majority of Industrial machines are that way.
I much prefer differential Step/Dir if using it, its just so much more noise immune, most of the drives I have used can accept differential and that meant when using devices such as the ESS I had to make up line drivers.
However using the CS-Lab products all of the above issues are non-issues as it caters for them all, 24v I/O and differential step/dir signals.
One thing however is I dont think I would go back to Step/Dir unless the hardware used made it a necessity, the analogue control is just so much better from what I have seen, encoders updating Mach is a big advantage as Mach always knows where it is, even after E-Stop, Limits being hit, manually moving an axis etc, so no more having to re-home each time you enable the servo drives.
There of course is the HiCon, which is Step/Dir, that can feed back encoders to Mach to update the position but I have no experience with them so cant comment on how well it works.
These are just my thoughts obviously
Hood