I need to update the pictures as I've gotten way further now. In fact, I'm presently working on the servo amp installations. Which is a good segue into....
I bought the VSD-E drives because they were economically priced and appeared to have a good bang for the buck. The Argons were not out at the time and, even if they were, would probably have been outside my price range. On paper they look very nice, but they are getting into a range where there is more competition from others and, more importantly, are getting well beyond the budget of the average home builder who needs to buy 3 or more drives.
On paper the VSD-E drives look like they will be very nice. In practice, they have been a nightmare so far to setup. I'm really not sure what is going on so I'm not ready to blame the drive at this point. It could well be the FTDI USB configuration cable, but I can't get a reliable sync to the drive. This makes tuning very unreliable, to the point that sometimes the tuning software sees the encoders and sometimes it does not. <sigh> Now, *if* this is all just some strange cable problem and the drives are not at fault, then the drives will, I think, be stellar additions. If not, I'll have to buy something else. But what does worry me is that there do not seem to be tons of people using the VSD-E drives and that makes support spotty. There are two folks on the Granite site trying to help me now, but so far we have not made a great deal of progress and what I really need is to get help from Granite itself, I suspect. However, they have not responded to the posts or to a direct support request. This may be related to some vacation, I really don't know... I certainly hope that is the case, though, because if it isn't then I have some expensive boat anchors and I'll have to find something else that will work. I am not sure what those would be but I'd also be frustrated because of the cost and the fact that I'd have to change my system setup. Personally, I'm hoping GD will come through with help.