“Pro” vs “Hobby” Servos

How different are the performance specs of “Pro” vs “Hobby” servos?

I’ve heard a lot of claims, but it’s easy enough just to go look at the published specs. Here, I’ll take a Yaskawa 750W Sigma-5 AC Servo (typical axis drive for a Haas VMC) against the HomeshopCNC 850 oz-in DC servos I have installed on my IH mill. Here’s what I get from the respective (linked) spec pages:

- Power: Yaskawa = 750W / HomeshopCNC = 612W (a little smaller servo)

- Peak Torque (oz-in): Yaskawa = 1184 / HomeshopCNC = 850

- Max Speed: Yaskawa = 6000 rpm / HomeshopCNC = 4200 rpm

- Voltage: Yaskawa = 200V AC / HomeshopCNC = 72V DC

One interesting figure is to take the power consumption of the two and equalize what the torque should be from the HomeshopCNC were it to consume 750W. That value is 1042 oz-in, which is still less than the 1184 oz-in from the Yaskawa. AC servos are known to be more efficient, and that sort of quantifies it a little bit at 12-15% more efficient in producing torque for a given amount of power.

This is all just out of idle curiousity and interest.

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