rodw wrote: NO for CNC you need to use their SD (step and direction) drives so they can be controlled by Linuxcnc (or other similar systems.
Those are designed for industrial use, convyers etc.
You were right. I reached out to the company with several questions and this was the response...
I'm an applications engineer with Teknic. I was recently forwarded your contact request regarding the differences between the SC and SD ClearPath servo motors.
In short - you can use SC motors to take in step and direction, but I wouldn't recommend it. The MES 717rE should be a pretty good fit (I have seen customers use it in the past, and LinuxCNC is a good choice for the CNC control software.
That being said, if you are looking for the motor drive to interface with step and direction signals (generated by the G-code), it's best to use a CNC software that is configured to accept the signals CNC controllers generally output. Creating your own trajectory generator that interfaces with G-code is a non-trivial task, although it is possible to do so.
Essentially, the SD motors come configured to work in CNC applications with little programming (other than configuration) with the motors themselves. They simple wire to a controller and breakout-board. The SC motors can take in step and direction commands, but you would need to program the operational mode completely from scratch. With that, you would also need to setup a host PC (single board computer) that interfaces with serial communication in order to input the step and direction signals into the motor inputs.
