First Proper CNC Router

[Doddy]

Going to try tidying up the wiring to see if that helps. Got twisted pair for the control side. For the motor side, this might be a silly question, should I run all 8 wires all the way to the driver and connect the pairs there, or join the pairs close to the motor and just run 4 wires from there. For the purpose of testing I'm not using shielded cables at the moment, would that impact motor performance at all?

I'm assuming you mean you have 8-wire steppers? In which case it depends on how you're wiring them. If in series then definitely wire the phases together at the motor - you'll reduce your losses due to the resistance of the wiring that way. If in parallel then its less obvious to me (5:30am in the morning for me) - paralleling at the motor and only taking half of the cables back to the driver suggests greater losses in the motor leads. Ideally short the motor pairs at the motor without cutting the cables and take the pairs back to the driver and terminate there as well (i.e. run the cables in parallel back to the driver). Or just wire in parallel at the motor and use wire with a large CSA to export the motor drive back to the driver. It will make some marginal difference.

Shielding will not affect motor performance, thought it might help to avoid any induced noise into signal cables.