Originally Posted by
Jim Dawson
An interesting project and a bit of a challenge given the budget constraints.
Is this machine going to be used for a single repetitive operation rather than a general use machine? The free demo version of Mach3 allows you to run 200 lines of G-code, so for a repetitive operation 200 lines might be enough because you can put the program in a loop and run the same subroutine over and over. I have done this for special machines.
It's pretty hard to suggest specific components without knowing more about the machine, more information would be very helpful. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is to make sure the steppers are large enough to reliably move the load at the required speeds.