Need help setting up a lathe(Sherline)

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationI think that there is something to be said for starting with a parallel port and a cheap integrated driver board.

For example.
You might well end up not using that for your machine, because you will probably blow it up before then But you will learn a lot in the process and then have a better idea which way you want to go.

I started with one of those, blew it up, replaced a driver, blew it up again... (The TB6560 is fairly fragile, a loose motor wire will do for them)

Eventually I ended up with discrete black-box stepper drivers and a Mesa 7i43, but I wouldn't have known that was the way to go without the early experiments.

They recommend me get the 7I96. So I'll go with that. I'll need the drivers too, I am not sure about what they mean by open and closed loop. I got the Sherline Nema 23 motors.

Closed loop has an encoder so the drive will compensate for a lost step.

I think you said already got your steppers though

Thanks, I am guessing they are not closed loop since they look pretty simple.

How did you construct your controller box?

I have the 7I96 ,
a 36v 360 Watt power supply, and
4 STEPPERONLINE CNC Stepper Motor Driver 1.0-4.2A 20-50VDC 1/128 Micro-step Resolutions for Nema 17 and 23 Stepper Motor cards.

I was also wondering what type of wire I should use to cable everything

kbec wrote: I was also wondering what type of wire I should use to cable everything

In what sense? I use pink, mainly