Quote Originally Posted by Robin Hewitt View Post
I think you might do better with one of the ARM development boards.

I got one for my plasma cutter. It has a little touch screen, USB, serial, memory card socket to plug in GigaBytes of extra memory , buttons, LED's and a squeaker all powered off the USB cable.

TI even have a stepper driver dev board with all the bells and whistles plus sample code. List is £80 but someone will sell them cheap eventually.

The GNU compiler is free, gives unfettered access and runs under Windows.
Do you have a link to those products? I got a STM32 board with touch screen off ebay for about £40, I haven't got round to using it yet.

I am using the R2C2 controller board designed for 3D printers, it has 100 MHz ARM plus 4 axis stepper drivers using A2988 chips. I did a video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAKubJFlKuE&feature=plcp