School me on the best machine for big hardwood

[bluesking]

Aye, they're the things - a lot cheaper on Aliexpress though!

Indeed, I'm trying to plan my build around locally sourceable components. I'll buy them from china when I'm ready but I want to know that I can fallback to something local if it gets me out of a jam or around a big delay.

When I get my machine finished I'll bum a bit of hardwood off Mike and see how smoothly they cut it.Theoretically I can't see that there would be a lot of difference between a Clearpath and a closed loop stepper, but as always the devil will be in the detail which in this case will be the algorithms in the driver modules.

I would appreciate that hugely. I assume your build is using closed loop steppers?

I'm seeing the following shades of grey at the moment:
1) open loop steppers
2) closed loop steppers
3) closed loop steppers with integrated control (e.g. https://www.zappautomation.co.uk/electrical-products/integrated-motors/integrated-easy-servo-motors.html)
4) servos with integrated control (e.g. clear path or something like this https://www.zappautomation.co.uk/electrical-products/servo-systems/integrated-servo-motors/syint080-750w-integrated-dc-servo-motor.html)
5) traditional servos (controlled from a controller)

Here is a very useful thread on this forum - clarified a lot about servos for me:
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/11096-Advice-on-buying-servos