Kinetic art laser "gun" with stepper motors

This is part of larger kinetic art display case, a new "Kineticon" which will be a coin-op entertainment machine. It's appropriate here as I want to use miniature stepper motors to control 2 axes. I hope to be able to get help from the controls part of the forum.

Started by design in SolidWorks. See video here of basic idea and two degrees of freedom:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rToTqHKBxC8"]YouTube- Kinetic Art Laser Gun 1.avi[/ame]

Original Kineticon worked for years and brought in thousands:

http://www.bixworks.com/kinpage.htm

Probably be better off using standard RC servos and a microcontroller.

yeah, servos are way easy. I worry about the life of servos maybe brushless ones are the way to go.

I'd like to buy lasers, but there are so many cheapo chinese ones - my first batch was all junk. Maybe one for laser sights would be good - looking at this one VLM-650-01-LPA-ND from Digi-Key. $16 each, kinda pricey, and I need three. One thing about these is they need to go for years, that includes all parts. My last kinetic machine ran for thousands of hours.

Got the lasers. Started making parts. Had to get my lathe tuned up, works well now - an old Logan 820. Got a brushless servo, I have two now but I guess I have to rob one from a helicopter.

I realized I don't need a swash plate, just that one servo has to rotate with the mechanism. I'll use flat ribbon cables like Digi-Key WM10002-ND. Good for sub-360° rotation.

I'm now trying to control this with an Arduino board: