Quote Originally Posted by routercnc View Post
Nice summary. I think it is fair to say that building a CNC machine involves lots of choice at each part of the process and that many of the options are not better or worse just different. If you enjoy building machines this can be part of the fun but if you are a beginner you don’t even know what the choices are !
Yes exactly no better or worse in lots of cases but knowing the difference helps and one can suit better than the other in some situations.

I think I/O or the lack of it is often the one thing that holds many people back from playing and automating things which would make the machine more fun or easier because if you haven't got it in the first place adding it later can be expensive.

End of the day it's what you want the machine to do, if you just want a workhorse then KISS works. But if you want a few whistle n bells then I/O is key.