I'm ready to spend some money on my 10x54 mill, got about $1000 to play with. I'd like to hear from others with this size mill what torque rating motors they are running on X, Y, and Knee Z.
I've read a few threads over the last few days including the J head conversion thread, and another thread here mentioning torque ratings for Bridgeport being supplied with 29-40 in/lbs. If the convert-me.com is correct in conversion this is b/t 464 and 640 oz/in. Is this right, I have previously been told go for 1000 oz/in or better for this size machine?
So I thought I'd ask some people who have obviously been through this to see results.
I've looked into it enough to see a 2:1 or 3:1 reduction would probably also be beneficial.
Thread I took the above from,
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28132

Are ballscrews necessary at first? Both my x &y are at .008 backlash, further adjustment only makes it tight to crank. Would this be alright for use so long as the finish climb cuts are kept shallow and slow enough for the tool not to reel in the backlash while climbing and ruin the finish?

I've seen how to do Z on the spindle, but imagine I would prefer it on the knee, anyone have any ideas about the torque requirement for a knee? Good pictures of a knee conversion?

Incase it has any bearings on response I plan on some Geckos with microstep and a PMDX motherboard.
I'll be running EMC until I find something I can't do with it.
The motors I was looking at are on stepper3.com, considering the S34HT630-P for xy since they have a 6A rating and fairly low inductance at 3.5 Mh. Is this a logical choice? Or is more torque required.
What are some other online sources for steppers at a good price, what do you recomend?
Thank you all for such a great forum.
Mike