Newbie- stepper help, controller, whatzit? Maxpath42

[elozada]

Hi all,
new to the posting, old in lurking.

Got a couple problems.
I have a maxpath 42 and cut lot's of aluminum. It's done me well for the past 3 years. However... it's a piece a crap that trips every 15 seconds now. I am not the original owner, and have figured out how to use it fiddle faddling around with Mach2 with DXF's converted from 3Dstudio Max. I've got an instruction manual if that's what you want to call the stack of spiral bound paper from maxnc.. and i was givin the driver(s)? from them too to run mach2.

Was having problems a year ago, and figured it was homing and limits (thanks to this forum) and proceeded to use the machine a while longer...

last weekend i was cutting .125" 5052 aluminum.. a simple pattern.. new path, same size and less detailed then hundreds others i have cut.. and the piece of crap machine laughs me in the face when i actually try use it.

now.. I've taken the entire machine apart and put it back together (totally apart) and X, Z work now / no tripping.. but Y.. is the now laughing bastard. So through process of elimination I've narrowed it down to the Y stepper motor, or the actual controller, or wires pertaining to both, or driver, or software or.... i didn't narrow crap down. I replaced all the wires that go from the controller to all the steppers, even went as far as to change the Y with another stepper motor from the MaxNC 15.

so... 4 questions to the Reg's and Guru's here:

Cost efficiently, what would be my best course of action for replacing all the steppers, the controller, anything else that makes this pos run smooth.

can i upgrade steppers for more torque? So that i can cut the thickness of aluminum i usually cut (don't think the maxpath was meant for what i cut)

can you shed some Yoda knowledge on what i am experiencing with the frustrated vague symptoms that i posted?

can someone point me in a direction to learn how these little cnc's work, for as i said... it's all self taught fiddle faddle.

that's a lot of "can anyone" begging.. but any help is appreciated