Hi,

Since this forum is primarily meant for discussing the PBP compiler from Melabs I'm obviously going to suggest that.

The board you link to is a device programmer which is used to get your compiled program into the PIC. You will not use that same board in your actual project.
For a device programmer, personally I'd buy a PICKit3 instead - it costs slightly more (or buy a clone on EBAY) but it is the current low cost device programmer from Microchip and it is supported, ie when new devices becomes available they add support for it in the PICKit3. It looks like the programmer you link to uses the PICKit2 interface which is no longer supported.

As for your application, all you've said is that the motor needs to push 2kg along a rack, using a pinion. That can be done with pretty much any motor, it's just a matter of gearing it properly. In order to properly design a thing a like that you need to specify how fast it needs to move, how fast it needs to accelerate and what the desired resolution is. Is the rack always level or can/will it be positioned at an angle? That makes a big difference. Step motors are not famous for being quiet, is that of concern?

The first step is selecting an appropriate motor, only when you have decided on a motor can suitable drive be selected.

Today driving the motors in bipolar mode is by far the most common way to do it.

With more details I could probably design, engineer and build a unit for you but I'm not in the UK.

/Henrik.