Everything you need to know to design your own CNC router
If you can, <i>please</i> use servos and not steppers. Steppers are cheap and ridiculously easy to interface and get good positional control out of. As long as they don't skip steps. And they <i>always</i> do. So you end up running at 1/10th of the speed your tool could move at to avoid that, and even then you'll end up tossing workpieces because you lost synchronization somewhere along the line.<p>For 3D printers they work fine because there is no pushback ('loading') from the extruder. But for anything that cuts servos are the way to go if you want half decent speed and quality cuts, as well as long tool life.