So, while I have built my share of electrical boards, I feel the need to start on my own CNC machine project to help take my fabrication further (5-axis ideally, but anything from 3-6 axis would work). With that being said, I’m not sure how I want to begin the electronic portion of it… mostly because I have yet to design boards with drivers specifically intended for stepper motors.
With such a diverse amount of CNC electronics boards out there, would you just buy one that fits the closest or design & etch your own board? In one way, purchasing an already made board would alleviate that portion of the project, but at the same time for some that could be a fun part! Personally, I like making my own electronic boards from start to finish rather than buying one. Designing your own board will allow you to decide what components will be on the board and what the dimensions will be too. All-in-all, I can’t decide which one I would like to do… which leads me to my question(s): 
Does anyone have any experience in creating their own CNC electronics board? If so, would you recommend doing the same thing to someone else interested in building their own CNC machine?
If buying a CNC board would be my best bet, what would be the “best board” to purchase? I’ve heard, watched videos, and read reviews about the grblShield, Synthetos’ gshield and their new TinyG, but not personally having seen or used these boards I’m not sure if any of those three would be the best. My thought would be the TinyG would be the best choice out of those 3 since it is independent, not requiring an arduino to run the CNC machine.
Hopefully, I’ve not confused anyone as to my question. Just in case I did though, this entire thread was to ask if you were going to build a CNC machine from scratch, would you also build the electronics board yourself too or buy one pre-made? If you were going to purchase a pre-made board, what do you feel would be the best choice? Like I said, I’d love to build a 5-axis machine, but in all honesty anything from 3-6 would be fine with me to start off with as I could always add-on later.