Building a new machine, from scratch, 24"x24" design goal

[Mjolinor]

You would do better to stay away from the Chinese motors altogether if you can afford to. They are a low price because they are cheaply made. That presents itself in various ways, they are generally still quite reliable but their operating parameters are variable in that the steps can be uneven sizes and the current they will handle can vary within a motor for each of the coils along with the torque they produce per winding. Microstepping is where they really fail, the steps are hugely varied.

As steppers are very reliable and rarely fail unless they are dismantled buy second hand. The cheapest way is to buy bits of a machine with them on usually.

Stuff like this though this isn't a stepper.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2719217173...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[DBFIU]

I wasnt planning on buy something like that.

These guys will be my supplier, they seem pretty popular.

http://www.smw3d.com/

I will also be using www.openbuilds.com for a lot of parts and direction.

openbuilds has tons of bundles of parts for reasonable price. check them out

[Mjolinor]

He is correct. One of the reasons for that is if you make a motor that has max say of 2 amps then it does not get as hot and expand as much as a motor that is designed to take say 4 amps. Because of that the 4 amp motor has bigger clearances between the rotor and the stator and magnetic fields in air cost a lot in terms of power