Getting started

While there is a ton of information, I was wondering if there is some steps for someone like me that is just getting started.

I need to wire up my control box and I am not sure where to start, and I cannot find a simple diagram for what I want to do.

I have the Mesa 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'd also like to maybe add some cooling fans, but not sure how I would power them, I can wire up things if I have a diagram, but can't really design my own circuits.

I am starting with a lathe but hope to dual purpose things in the future and eventually use 4 axis total.

I also have a desktop computer to run Linux CNC on.

I was also wondering do I have to setup the computer first, or have everything wired up first?

Thanks in advance

You can communicate with the card first if you want, there is a stickey thread under driver boards for setting the ip address. Need to power it with 5 volts.

Usually the drive has wiring diagrams as some wire up different. The card and instruction manual have labels for all the pins.

So bare minimum would be your 5 volt power. Then the step0 block would go to your 1st drive.
You would then wire your drive(s) with it's power source and the motor winding wires

I'm going to make an assumption that your stepper online drive is like my kl5056e. I set mine like this

step(0) terminal block to

5v+ to enable+
These 4 went to the dir pul pins on the drive
Step+
Step-
Dir+
Dir-

Here is a picture of one diagram. I did not wire the power as shown in this picture. I used the 2 terminal block at the bottom of the card.