What is the difference between servos and steppers?
Let me preface this by saying that I’m not very familiar with stppers so you should probably get a second opinion! Additionally, these comments are for systems >300 oz/in – systems smaller than that will probably be best off with steppers. In general, servos have lower continuous torque but have the same amount of torque throughout their rpm range. Whereas steppers only have their rated torque at very low rpm, and will run out of torque fairly quickly, which means that you’ll need a stepper with much higher static torque range in comparison to a servo. Steppers can hold their rated torque all day while servos are generally rated in continuous and peak – peak torque will be anywhere from 2 to 5 times continuous torque. It used to be that servos were much more complicated to setup than steppers. With step-and-direction controls, setting up a servo is comparable to settings up a stepper. You do need to have an encoder (which means sizing the encoder) but you don’t have to worry so much ab
