King Midas mill conversion

[diy-john]

Motors and drivers are a good choice. What voltage is that 400W PSU?

- The one I was looking at, is this. Is it any good?

Wattage 400 Watts
Input Voltage 240V AC
Output Voltage 36V DC adjustable +- 2.5V approximately
Output Current 11 Amps

I would substitute the couplings (4) for timing belts and pulleys. It makes it much easier to mount the motors as no faffing about getting them on concentric, reduces resonance and allows you to choose the ratio to get either better resolution or speed.

Think I just started to like belts and pulleys.

Not sure if one wants more speed, at 5mm pitch. Thought of going lower pitch, even 2mm, but most of screws available seem to be 5mm.
- Perhaps my preference is machine / cutter longevity and accuracy.

For (5),(6),(11),(12) make your own as you can use the milling machine to make them better than the commercial ones and much much cheaper.

In my calculations,perhaps half budget is for mounting hardware. On Ebay there seems to be great bargains, for example I like these mounts:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aluminium-...item3f148563db

Good an idea to make home-made mounts etc., though worry a bit about increased complexity.

why not try the parallel port first as it costs virtually nothing to try?

Good point, parallel it will be.

For the stepper motor cables most people use 4-Core CY, 1.5mm^2 cable. Also add E-stop switch, limit switches and connectors for stepper motors

Going now back to drawing board, I will soon come up with a more detailed shopping list. Thanks Jonathan for comments, they are very helpful.