Gentlemen,

"I think you are in for a long long learning path as you have not yet arrived at the foot of the cliff."

Of course, but that's exactly what I enjoy about engineering, and especially electronics and software. There's always new stuff to get my head into. Would you deny me the pleasure of doing what I enjoy most? (well, second most ;) I have spent years programming Intel processors, and if you can program Intel there's not much else in this vale of tears to terrify you. I have also had to decipher spec sheets in Japanese, and more recently Chinese. Where there's a will, there's usually a bored girl in a Chinese take-away who's happy to do a bit of translation over a plate of noodles.

Now, you're certainly right about all the tooling needed to turn out quality work on today's power tools; but this is just another argument for not spending what I don't have to on electronics. And there again: where I can make the tooling myself, I shall do so.

Irving, yes I have had a quick look at CNCZone and have seen the threads on Gecko. I'll read more at the week-end.

But I have to chuckle:- I entered this forum with people applauding the task of automating PCB manufacture. Now the roles have reversed, and you're all trying to disuade me from doing it!

Come on gentlemen! Where's the spirit that began the world's Industrial Revolution in England? Where's that can-do attitude that built the Empire? Ask an Aussie if he'd rather buy off the shelf or build his own? Nine times out of ten he'll roll up his sleeves and do it himself. (And incidentally, have you noticed that for several years now all the constructor articles in Practical Electronics have been written by Australians? It was a British magazine for decades, but it's now written by Aussies, and the online edition is distributed by a Brit living in America.)

If I were still employed in Industry I'd normally go for an off-the-shelf developped-and-debugged item every time, simply because the commercial environment almost never leaves time to re-invent the wheel. You just buy what's needed and cost it into the project, because the customer wants ten thousand off delivered at a thousand a month starting next Wednesday. But I'm not in that environment any longer. I'm a free man again; my time is my own to spend as I please; and it pleases me to learn about designing stepper drivers. There are not many areas I haven't explored yet, and in all my working life I have never met a technical problem I couldn't solve. Now I'm looking forward to doing this.

And I will.

Ian