Mini lathe conversion to CNC

Hi all,
I have a Sherline lathe that I would like to convert from manual control to CNC. I have no real hands-on experience with CNC and am hoping that some people here could help me sort out a general plan of what to get in order to implement EMC2 software.
1. Stepper motor: I know that I would most likely use stepper motors because they are fairly inexpensive. Servomotors are great, but as a hobby for now, I don't want to invest too much. My machine will require NEMA 23 size stepper motors.
2. Hardware: Is there a specific motion controller board that you can recommend for running EMC2? There are many choices out there that honestly I don't really know where to start looking. I think I prefer to have one that can process stepper motor encoder signals as well so that it could be operated as a closed loop system.
3. Stepper motor drive: I see the Gecko brand comes up a lot. They also make a 4-axis motor controller. It looks like this controller allows you to directly connect to normal 4-wire stepper motors. I just don't know how well it works with EMC2. It doesn't support encoders connection either, so I guess there's no possibility to turn it into a closed loop system later on.

Please let me know what input you may have...

Thanks

1. (and 3.) If I were building a stepper system I'd seriously consider one of the hybrid stepper setups from Leadshine.
www.ebay.com/itm/Leadshine-Closed-Loop-s...9:g:dxoAAOSwVL1V-OrR
They aren't that much more than an ordinary stepper, but are much better.

2. You don't need any motion controller boards a simple parallel port and breakout board should due. Software stepping with a parallel port should be good enough for a low speed mill. If you needed something fast (like for a wood router with speeds over 300ipm) then hardware stepping might be important.

3. Gecko drives are perfectly fine and work well with Linuxcnc, as do almost all other stepper drives. I think most stepper drivers are pretty equivalent and interchangeable. The only real questions is quality and is the drive the right size for your motor application. I think as long as you stay away from the really cheap nameless Chinese stuff you should be ok, and even those can work adequately.

Hi Todd,
The Leadshine hybrid stepper motor sounds like a good idea. With 286 oz-in I think it has more torque than what my machine needs but I'm sure they have more models to choose from.
I'm looking into breakout boards from PMDX. Would you recommend the PMDX-122?
www.pmdx.com/PMDX-122


Hi Andy,
I am using the Sherline CNC motor mounts and the mounting holes are sized for NEMA 23 stepper motors. www.sherlinedirect.com/index.cfm?fuseact...179&CFTOKEN=33914093

I've had good luck with CNC4pc's C10 board ($28).

I had excellent results with automation technologies Inc. Hybrid stepper kit. The one I got had 2 drivers 2 hybrid stepper motors a c-10 parallel card a torrid power supply and a12v supply for the cards. I added an encoder and e stop to the kit.

I'm a big fan of Leadshine digital drivers. I have DM556 and DM856. They are excellent. Available cheap on Aliexpress.

I used Mesa 7i43 (got second hand cheap) and 7i76. If I bought new, I would get 7i76E probably.

Hey all,
Firstly thanks for your help so far. I haven't come back here for a while but I'm still working on this project in my spare time. I had been learning more about steppers and servo motors and finally decided to go with some servos instead. It's probably a little overkill for such a small lathe like this, but I thought I would experiment with it Now I'm starting to think about the appropriate computer hardware and accessory for running Linux CNC. I've always used Windows computers and never tried Linux so I'm not quite really sure what to do now. Currently I'm using a HP laptop running Windows 7 that's about 3 years old, and I've been thinking if it's possible to simply convert it to Linux to get started? For CNC work, do you think it's better to get a dedicated desktop PC? If so, how do I go about choosing which one to get? Thanks again