Newbie- What stepper motors should I use?

[dung0beetle]

I have built a 3 axis desktop cnc table for milling wood and other soft materials and I do not know what stepper motors I should use. My cutting tool will be a dremel type tool.

I have a few stepper motors pulled from "dead" printers, scanners, and copiers, but I am not sure if they are "beefy" enough to work against resistance.

This is my first post, so I hope this is the right place to put it.

[irving2008]

A lot depends on how big your unit is, what slide rails and leadscrews you have used and what speeds you want to achieve. Knowing those parameters you can work out what size motor is required, however as a crude rule of thumb a typical cnc woodworking router with a lightweight cutter and a work area of 12" sq or more needs motors of at least 0.8Nm - 1Nm to get the balance between speed and load. It is unlikely that motors of printers/scanners come close (although cnc machines have been made to match the capability of such motors but these are really only lightweight toys).

[dung0beetle]

I haven't installed leadscrews yet because I am waiting until I have the stepper motors, but the bearings I am using are like the ones pictured below.

They are mounted to a piece of angled aluminum more or less like this.