Great man, much appreciated. I agree entirely that I should inevitably advantage the power isolation features of the motor shield. I was originally in "quick test mode".
The reality of this conundrum is that I originally wanted to actually control steppers by R/C. This would have met my design requirements for this product (invention) perfectly. The problem is, that I can only control 2, or 3 steppers at most with either the 4 or 6 motor shield. I absolutely need 4 steppers for this application. It was then that I went down the rabbit hole of r/c servos because I can purchase super high torque units and get the same mechanical result; using one shield and m/p environment.
Anyway, great to chat and I will keep researching this application but more importantly, keep putting in work learning and growing with the Arduino and coding environment. It's a steep learning curve.
Cheers!