Hi Dennis,
It's been years since you posted your reply to my query. You may have thought I dropped off the face of the earth. In a way I did... a three year divorce and legal battle to get my house, workshop, and tools back from my ex-wife. Very nasty! But in the end, I got almost everything back and finally placed an order with Keling for their stepper controller box (rather than the individual parts - driver, power supply, pPort breakout). I also dug up an "old" PC with XP and bought and loaded a copy of Mach3 on it.
Got the cables made up and was able to get one of the motors turning last night (at about 1am!) then went to bed. The others should be up and running soon and I've got to add a few limit switches to the machine as it only came with a Z-home switch.
Mach3 was easy to set up and Keling had Mach3 config docs and sample files for their box which made sure it was a short process.
Thanks for your past help. I wanted to be sure you knew that your advice was followed... it just took a while
Next is to decide on the CAD/CAM package, but that is a task for another day and another forum.
-David