I too am a newbie (sorry). I have completed building my own machine, and was advised to buy Xylotex 3 axis Kit (includes: power supply, 3 axis control board, 3 stepper motors, PCI 25 pin ribbon cable, and fan). When I loaded mach3 and hooked up xylotex system I can get motors to LOCK, but if I try to get motors to move at the right stepper speed 16,000 steps per inch (screw TPI is 10), it locks but loses steps in fact motor doesn't turn. I have to take the steps per inch down to 1000, velocity to 60, and acceleration to 30. Then motor turns. Reading this forum I checked allot of replies, I have now gone from vista on desktop to XP on laptop/w usb smoothstepper. Again everything works but I can't motor tune stepper motors even close to the tpi per inch. Motors do lock and lose steps.
Please help me. Is it the xylotex control board?