Well I have ordered a Break Out Board, an enclosure and a power supply for the +5v. More questions when it finally arrives.

While I am at it, I was thinking about adding a handwheel to the setup to control the stepper motors as and when. Is it simply a matter of plugging this into a USB port on the computer? Or does this require me to start another thread? Better still, is there a thread already?

Thanks everyone for your help so far.