Thanks Craig!
The parameters are pretty clearly laid out in the manual thankfully, and it's easy enough to adjust with the push buttons on the drive panel.
I don't really need the reverse, I will be using it for rigid tapping at some point, but that's not possible with the little board I have now, I will implement it using the servo in step and direction mode I think when I go to linuxcnc after buying a set of 750w servo kits from the people I got this one from. I am going to fiddle with this one in step/dir mode also to see how well easy it is to get right to prove feasibility for the cheap servo upgrade (they really are very cheap).
I appreciate the input a lot. It's really rewarding going from initial severe puzzlement to understanding the (albeit simple) operation of drive control.