thanks jazz. Il upload a piccy tomorrow

got the Z working!! off its own steam. Using its own power supply its own stepper controller. The other motor controllers appear to be working but the other steppers (Y and X) are eight cable flavour

two green, two yellow, two red & two blue

with the standard 4 core ones, I work out which are the coils but shorting the cables to test for extra resistance in the shaft but these eight core ones blow my mind... has anybody got any idea how I work out how to wire it? Ive got no model number for the steppers and obviously no diagram
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oh, and... and as the highlight of all your evenings... here is the z moving