Contemplating DIY build; quick hi and q's

[Clive S]

Was thinking linuxCNC at first, in terms of controller board I've yet to look into anything. Something USB-based would be good rather than parallel port.

Welcome to the forum Dan, I for one have gained a lot of useful knowledge from the kind people on here.
Re Linuxcnc I don't think you can use the USB port with it but you can use more than one P.P. or purchase a mesa card to fit into the pc that will enable you to use lots of input and output pins.
Also Linux use the real-time kernel so does not need to buffer its gcode output.

There is quite a lot of debate on Mach3 verses Linux but they are both good as far as I can tell.

Good luck and don't purchase anything until you check on here with your design etc. ..Clive