Newbie- Getting my hands dirty

[DieselTwitch]

Hello,
I know how annoying newbies can be so i will keep this short and I thank you for taking the time to read and respond.

So I want to build my own plasma table.....a long time from now! right now i just want to get my hands dirty and start to understand every part of the machine. I did some looking around and there is just so much out there that I dont know where to belong, I dont know where to go to find the stuff I need. I found the geckodrive and it looks promising but im not sure where to and what type of motors to get, and also how do i tell the geckodrive how to step the motors? i get the basics its the details that are killing me. I'm looking to get just enough to get some motors to spin.... then i will move the software to get it to work. I have SW, MCX3 at school so i can generate the g code but I want to start slow and get understanding not just the finished product.

Thanks for you help

Brian

please let me know if im in the