welcome Triffid_Hunter and Deano. I have an unreliable repstrap in BNE that I'm working to make more reliable in my 1% spare time. :-) It's been a fun build, but not a fast one. I've been 2+years in the making.
my suggestions:
Take whatever fast-track method/s you can afford.
Get the makerbot electronics if you can ( I have gen2 with an arduino mega, but prettty much any gen2 or gen3 will do).
Don't expect anything to work out of the box.
Learn the code.
Invest ( or aquire ) good stepper motors and stepper drivers.