Need Help!- 2 Stepper Motors in Tandem-one controller?

[Gneyenhuis]

I'm building a CNC engraver using an existing X-Y-Z machine I scavaged from the medical industry. The X and Y axis' each have dual stepper motors with a cogged belt between them and the gantry or the table are fastened to each belt. Both motors run in the same direction at the same speed at the same time. My question is: can I hook both motors to one controller or do I have to use a separate controller for each motor even though they run exactly the same. This unit uses 2 Steppers for X axis, 2 steppers for Y axis and one stepper for Z axis. I'd like to use the gecko G540 controller which only handles 4 steppers.

I'm ditching the existing boards in the picture and using ones compatible with Mach3 software.
I plan to mount a 300,000 RPM dental handset on the Z axis using a diamond burr.
Any ideas?

[Pandinus]

It really should be one driver per motor...

[CalG]

One drive per motor, but one controller can output to two drives!
Drives receive "pulses" etc from the controller. These "pulses" can be split id there is current enough. (drive controller compatibility)

[RomanLini]

Looking at that setup you can probably just parallel the motor windings and use one driver for 2 motors.

If you check the original electronics (trace the wires back from motors to PCB) it might already be using one driver and paralleled motors.

[Gneyenhuis]

How bout I buy a 5 axis board: a TB6560 from CNCGEEKER.com and parallel 2 of the drivers on axis X and 2 of the drivers on axis Y and use the other driver on axis Z? will this work? My steppers are Vexta PH265-04 5V 1A.

OR:

Is it possible to use this same board configuration and combine: the X axis with the A axis--and combine the Y axis with the C axis using Mach3? I know hardly anything about Mach3 and don't know if this is actually possible. It was just an idea. Thanks

[Gneyenhuis]

I just pulled up the config menu on Mach3 and found an item called Slave Axis which seems to make it possible to combine the extra axis' with the X and Z axis. This would seem to solve my problem. I will move to the Mach3 forum and ask more questions. Thanks!