Finally some comments...what a project whew!!! I'm taking a break now and do some serious metal detecting I think. In the end I have an awesome new tool to use in my coil building hobby and I'm thinking about machining some waterproof enclosures. In fact I'm thinking about quite a number of uses that were not practical without a cnc machine. I might also mount a 25k rpm router on this beast in the near future.
It was a lot of work and frustration but in the end it was worth it. I can't even imagine how you guys scratch build these things, my hats off to you. Thanks again to Lathemaster and especially Industrial Hobbies for coming out on site and giving this thing a swift kick.
If you are on the fence on maybe buying the Industrial Hobbies kit, my honest assessment is you will not be disappointed once its tuned and running properly, watching this thing move is something you just have to experience to appreciate, its awesome! Will it be an easy project? I might be, its certainly possible. My advice is hope for the best but plan for the worst because it could be a royal PITA as mine was. Variances in the mill IH hadn't seen before (he took lots of pics so I think he's going to make some adjustments for lathemaster retros), completely whacked out parallel port on a brand new pc, hey thats the way it goes sometimes. Plans are nothing, planning is everything. Hey look at it this way, I already flushed out every possible problem so the next guy should have smooth sailing!
Next up - Learning OneCNC