Originally Posted by
LaughingJaguar
6000 series aluminum plate, 1/8 to 1/4-inch thick.
A wood router (I'm assuming you mean a hand held one?) will handle that fine so long as your not too aggressive, but personally I far prefer a spindle and VFD over any form of hobby type automated router anytime. They generally have a better tolerance and are designed for a harder workload, longer.
Originally Posted by
LaughingJaguar
Am I to assume then that the bigger steppers are chosen to manage the mass of the gantry or the larger, heavier routers?
Both and more. But bigger isn't always better for CNC, you should work out what kind of load you'll have and go from there. Others I'm sure will chime in here with more info.
cheers,
Ian
It's rumoured that everytime someone buys a TB6560 based board, an engineer cries!