[MikeMa]

@BalloonEngineer When you say small, low power computers, I think about the Raspberry PI (not sure if you meant that small). At a woodworking show last year, a guy had built a small CNC router (think dremel tool) and it was ran off a Raspberry PI, using a GRBL controller. As I dug further, I found that the GRBL wouldn't handle the higher power requirements of the steppers that a larger CNC requires.

There have been a few guys who have successfully come up with hacks for a R. PI, but nothing I would be willing to use long term. The R. PI, and other small computers like that seem like they would be a great solution for running a CNC, but right now options seem limited.

 

[MikeMa]

@4DThinker Look for old lease computers. There is place here who sells them for around $100 with Windows 7 loaded on them. Since a lot of these are actually Vista era PCs, they still have a parallel port on them.