[sodickappsguy]

Is anyone out there using a USB based stepper drive. I have found a few on Ebay and google has several. I was wondering what people are using and and downsides to using USB compared to DB25. Will Mach3 support a USB stepper?

[ger21]

I'm not aware of any drives that get there signals from a USB port. Mach3 can control a Smoothstepper or NcPod motion controller through a USB port. Both of these devices send the step/dir signals to the stepper drives. Development on the NcPod seems to have stopped a few years ago, and the Smoothstepper, is currently the most popular option. www.warp9td.com

[sodickappsguy]

sorry i am still wet behind the ears. I should have said USB stepper controllers such as the site listed below. I am just thinking off hand the the USB will make the design a little bit easier with just having the plug in each controller to a USB hub and run the hub back to the PC.

http://www.netmotion.com/htm_files/mc_controllers.htm

[Zappautomation]

Stepper drivers that have a USB, RS232 or RS485/422 would normally have an onboard motion controller.
these controllers with have their own propiatary programing language and unless i have missed something will not work with Mach or other cnc software.