[Marc Soren]

OK...now we are getting somewhere...having spent years as a teacher on several fronts, I now get to be at a level where I am not even sure if I am able to ask a good question. You all seem to be rather gracious to newbies, so here we go!

Quoting from company literature: "The...PWM servo amplifiers are designed to DRIVE brushless DC motors at a high switching frequency.....They interface with a digital controller or can be used as a stand alone drive. These models requires only a single unregulated DC power supply...."

So, it appears that I mix-fused the terms "amplifier" with "driver" and "motion control card". Here, I was trying to equate these surplus amplifiers with something like a Gecko 320.
Obviously, this is not correct, but I am still not sure when a servo amplifier is needed and when it is not. I don't know enough about the specs that followed the intro paragraph segment quoted above....but, what specs and numbers would we be looking for?

Thanks in advance for further light...I hope I am setting this up so that others can learn as well. I dislike asking the kind of quetions that get asked 12 times a week, but have not found anything clear and concise as of yet for servo lingo...yet an appeal to company literature seems not enough for this newbie....perhaps the ratings for amps is enough to give it away that an amplifier is needed??