Originally Posted by
wizard
to answer some of your questions:
1. A capacitor is an energy storage device and acts to smooth out voltage levels in a power supply. This assumes we are talking about the filter capacitor which is usually the large component on the power supply.
2. AC current is changed into DC via a rectification process. Power supplies suitable for steppers often consist of as little as a transformer, bridge rectifier and a filter capacitor.
3. A 115 VAC fan needs to be connected to a 115 VAC circuit.
A word of advise: the power levels in a CNC controller can kill you!!!!!!! Seriously I'm not sure you are ready to wire up a CNC controller. Before going too far I'd look for a local course on industrial electricity or even home wiring. An alternative is to find a good book. The problem, for me anyways, is being confident that anything discussed is being received properly. Since we don't want dead people on this forum due to communications errors, you might not get a lot of specific information over the net.