Quote Originally Posted by MikeS View Post
Someone told me I needed a 'gaming standard' laptop to run suitable software.... So one of the first things I need to do is find a suitable laptop... probably s/h....
Why a laptop and not a desktop?, laptops tend to be configured to run low-powered, throttling performance and periodic health/battery management activities which make then a little less ideal than a more conventional desktop for CNC (where, if you're using the machine as the CNC motion controller you need more deterministic behaviour).

Also, what's the interface between the PC and the CNC?, if a parallel-port BoB then you need to make sure the laptop has a parallel port - few modern ones do. And there could still be problems with 3v3 operation (though I think that's not as much of a problem as has been made in the past).

I'd urge caution with the PoS units - again, make sure that they have the parallel port (if needed); their touch screens are generally robust but they can be very low performance, or thin-clients. The latter I've had some experience of and rejected for use in a CNC machine.

Your first job whilst waiting for delivery is to understand the interface between machine and PC, and that then helps to define the back-end of the tool-chain. Is there any indication of bundled software such as "mach3" ?