[roccent]

I am going to design a 4-axis positioning mechanism for my research, and it will use 4 steppers. Therefore what I need is very close to a CNC configuration (motors, drivers, linear movement, microcontroller to integrate everything).

I made something like this a decade ago using nema17, Arduino, and Pololu drivers. It worked fine but the motors did get quite hot and were very noisy. I want to make an improved version now. If possible, without reinventing the wheel. The main difference with a 'classical CNC' is that my system should carry a camera, not a spindle. And the camera is pointing horizontally, not downward (therefore this would not really work).

The 4 axes are XYZR, where R is the rotation (or tilt) of the camera. I plan to control each axis with a stepper such as Nema17 or Nema23. I am not interested in speed whatsoever, but I am very interested in high-precision positioning. Instead of doing it myself from scratch, this time I thought about buying/building a semi-ready CNC kit and then adapting it for my needs. The motors would be closed-loop because I read that they are more silent, more temperature and power-efficient (they only draw power when are not idle, unlike normal steppers), and that since they have an encoder you can avoid missing steps.

The main use is to control de motors in real-time, manually using a joystick. As an additional functionality, it would be nice to be able to program it by sending GCODE to execute defined-locations travel.

In principle I thought of buying close-loop NEMA motors and drivers and connecting everything to a Raspberry where I can use Python to make a fine control of speed, rotations, distances, using GCODE, etc. Therefore I wanted to ask you guys first if you know something like this.

For example, I could buy this CNC kit and then add the mechanical parts myself. I'm more interested in finding a ready-to-work software and/or electronics so I can take care of the physical configuration and start working.

What would you do in my case? Are you aware of Open-Source, or even commercial solutions that do what I need? Any information will be very welcome.