Got my stepper motors today. Don't have the proper drivers yet so only running them at 750mA (instead of 4.5A) but even at that piddly current I can't stall them by hand. Well impressed.
Yup, steppers for x, y and z axis. Would have made more sense to get a smaller one for the z, but the three were together in bundle for a nice price.
The cutting head is going to be kind of modular. Probably start with one of my face dremels and upgrade as I learn more about how to use it. I'd love one of those 3kW water cooled spindles on aliexpress. Or a plasma cutter!
NX scares me. We have to use its little brother, Solid Edge, at uni and that's frustrating enough. Especially as they never actually teach us properly, so you end up having to work stuff out by yourself and invariably this leads to learning to do things the wrong way, or leaving big gaps in your knowledge.
I am getting ready to do this as well. I am using an old table as my starting point. It's about 4' x 4', I want a decent size working area. I'm going to be using a Dremel as the cutting tool and an Arduino as the controller.
I have a lot of the parts I need already, but I'm only in the hunting, gathering phase right now. I have two stepper motors but I don't know if they will work yet. I have a parts list started and am getting ready to start buying/making the needed things and get this project going! I am going to do a time lapse of the project if I can get my camera to cooperate.
No progress, the real world has been getting in the way. Still waiting for my motor drivers to turn up. Still. Need to order my linear rails. Still need to grind my shirty welds off. Still need to finish designing the y and z axes.