Hood,

The factory is ISO 900x in contrast to some of this stuff that seems to be made with a soldering iron at the Kitchen table . . . not saying there is anything wrong with that, but ISO certs are not handed out like candy and I woud not be surprised if China now has more of them than any other country. You know where the money is coming from for the stimulus, yes?

I was responding to your earlier post which said

I am awaiting a new servo drive from a company called American Motion Technology. That same company makes a very reasoanbly priceS ($180)  AC servo DRIVE as well as matched small AC servo motors.

That seemed to suggest to me that you thought they were American made and I was simply letting you know where they came from.  As I  said their stepper drives seem good, I have them on the coil winder
Hood

I knew they were a Chinese company. Sneaking the word 'American' into a company name set up to operate in the US is nothing new. That just shows that the marketing people understand the American mind set.  I was just making the point that the ISO designation is meaningful, no matter what country the factory is located in.  The Chinese companies had a leg up on their world wide competition because there was so much government subsidizing of their 'development', but as far as I know, even the government can't buy an ISO certification, so hopefully it will remain a standard by which manufacturers can be compared. 

*soapbox off*

What appealed to my Geek side was that I could tell right away just by the way the Leadshine literature reads that AMT is populated with 'pocket protector' types . .  gives me a warm fuzzy . . .

How did you come to select Leadshine stepper drives? I'd be interested to know your take on the dmm-tech products?

Check this out!  Already set up to work with MACH3!  Do you have any opinion on this?

http://www.dmm-tech.com/Pricing.html

Well they claim it works with Mach, I could not see any mention of Step/Dir? Unless I did not dig deep enough.
I wonder why they  feature an Absolute encoder? Generally this is reserved for Robotic applications?
This will show you the relationship with the 3 windings and the commutation, although BLDC, but informative, nonetheless.
http://users.tinyworld.co.uk/flecc/4-pole-bldc-motor031102.swf
Nosmo

Just be carefull what you try to match up. AC sinusoidal & DC trapezoidal are two different critters. Trying to run an AC off a trap drive can lead to cogging instead of a SMOOTH rotation

Just a thought, (;-) TP

How did you come to select Leadshine stepper drives? I'd be interested to know your take on the dmm-tech products?

I used Leadshine stepper drives simply because I could get them next day delivery in the UK. The ones I have dont have LeadShine on them but that is normal for Chinese stuff, I have a DRO on a lathe called a Sino, I have seen it on the net under a dozen or more different brand names. Oh and I have had that DRO for 5 or 6 yrs and its switched on 24/7 and has never missed a beat Same with the Knuth (Top10 or whatever you want to call it ) DRO on the other lathe, Chinese can produce quality stuff just like anyone else

The DMM drives look like they are ok but without testing them and having something to  compare them with it would be hard to say. They will work with Mach, the specs say they can take Pulse/Dir signals which is just another word for Step/Dir. If I remember correctly Yaskawa call it Pulse/Signal, many names for the same thing .
 Only thing I am not keen on with these smaller drives is you need a seperate DC power supply where the more industrial orientated drives take mains. Not had a good look at the specs to see what the power supply requirements actually are however.

Hood

My next toy will be Advanced Motion Controls model DX15CO8

Snagged it on ebay for $25, so  . . .  worst case can't be that bad 

I need a CAN interface for it, but I can definately get a surplus UBS to CAN adapter for $50 . . . I'm trying to get it for $25, we shall see.

AMC does make models that will interface with RS232, but a new one of those babies is something like $600 . . . . WAY outside the 'dinking around with toys' department.