[Jon Stratis]

Obviously, it all depends on the design/setup. When you have an application with a limited operating range, I strongly recommend potentiometers. We haven't done it with a lead screw before, but we have done it with a winch, which is similar in that it turns rotary motion into linear motion. There are many design considerations to take into account first, though... like how many rotations are required. When we used it on our winch in 2013, the winch itself was designed for 7 rotations, and we had a 10-turn potentiometer available (It's always good to have a little extra rotation available, just in case).

In some applications, a potentiometer may not be appropriate. For example, it may require too many rotations to make an encoder practicable. In that case, an encoder with limit switches is great... especially when you can have limit switches at both extremes, and you travel to both extremes on a regular basis.

The only real downside to an encoder is that you have to keep track of where you are in the code - with a potentiometer, the value returned tells you where you are with nothing else needed.