Could you just hook new motor controllers to the motors / puncher and add an Arduino to control it?
Possibly. But i wanted a machine to play with, not to tinker with. At that point it’d be wayyy cheaper and easier to just convert an old CR-10 printer into a vinyl cutter
Can you build a CNC machine out of nothing but a computer and a CNC machine?
This is a very Hacker News usage of the word "just".