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[01012f]

At the end of the day you say you want something that will do aluminium and wood.
It will need to be fairly rigid and have some decent drive.

Mainly wood with a bit of aluminium but yes, I get your point

If you try and do it really low budget, try to fudge controls and are willing to cut corners. Then I suggest you abandon it.
It's a far cry away from a £50 3d printer kit.

hmm, maybe a misunderstanding.
I'm willing to fudge and cut corners to test if something works, if it does then I do it properly :)

I'm surprised the steppers moves at all with 3:1 (big pulley stepper > little pulley screw) yes?.

no mate, the other way around, little pulley on stepper -> big pulley on shaft, little pulley on other end onto the drive belt. so the stepper will turn 3 times to make the belt pulley turn once.
But as mentioned above, I've already decided to drop that in favour of dual lead screws

Most machines I see this size are direct driven (no belts) or 2:1. The long base driven by 2 steppers 1+slave.

that's where I'm headng

I fully accept I'm doing this with no experience but it's getting there, slowly, and i'm learning and having fun. Hopefully I'll end up with something that does what I want but either way, I'll enjoy the journey :)

Thanks for your input