[smarbaga]

are there any general purpose usb boards that can be hooked up to stepper drives , something thats not 10 years old and that is not dedicated to mack software. 3 or 4 axis. thanks

[A_Camera]

What do you mean by generic? How do you want to control it and what is your aim with it? If it's USB then it requires a driver. Drivers are written for a specific software, Mach3, UCCNC and others.

[ger21]

Virtually all motion controls are tied to specific hardware. There are no "generic" controllers that work with multiple softwares.

The closest is the CNC drives controllers, which work with UCCNC, Mach3, and Mach4.
Nothing else that works with Mach3 works with other software.
If you want to use different software than Mach3, you'll almost always be using hardware specific to that software.

[109jb]

Depending on your needs, Grbl is an open source g-code controller that runs on an Arduino microcontroller. It only requires a text based stream of g-code sent through the USB serial port. There are many open source user interfaces for PC, and some that allow use of an old tablet or phone for the front end. This may or may not meet your needs, but there was not much info in your original post to go on.

https://github.com/gnea/grbl/wiki

[smarbaga]

Thanks all , i have no specific needs at this time. i have 10 or 12 stepper motors and many screws and slides that have been collecting dust for 10 years or so. Its about time to make them move, not do anything in particular just move around for now :-).. all i lack is the software and computer to drive connection. not much has changed in the last 10 yrs except the lack of parallel printers.(ports) i have been looking at chillipeper and i guess because i have no specific application perhaps i will go with the cheap arduino to blow the dust off of this hardware. Thanks again , garry

[ger21]

not much has changed in the last 10 yrs except the lack of parallel printers.(ports)

A lot has changed.
There is now a lot of competition to Mach3 now, where there was basically none 10 years ago. And most of them are better than Mach3.

[A_Camera]

Thanks all , i have no specific needs at this time. i have 10 or 12 stepper motors and many screws and slides that have been collecting dust for 10 years or so. Its about time to make them move, not do anything in particular just move around for now :-).. all i lack is the software and computer to drive connection. not much has changed in the last 10 yrs except the lack of parallel printers.(ports) i have been looking at chillipeper and i guess because i have no specific application perhaps i will go with the cheap arduino to blow the dust off of this hardware. Thanks again , garry

You have still not explained what you actually want. What you mean by generic USB interface? How would such thing work? Or how would you force every manufacturer to use that specific communication protocol? The Arduino route is also specific, not generic.