My new Mill Turn machine was delivered and I've got it set up, so I thought I would share some thoughts on it. This is my 4th machine from Shoptask/Shopmaster since the old 17-20 XMTC back in '93. The quality, fit and finish and functions are a lot better now than in those days, but the price is a lot more as well. The new machines are full CNC, but still with manual functions and a factory DRO, so no more dials on the handles. The setup is the same as earlier machines with the bench legs mounted upside down to form the crate frame work. I have a forklift in my shop, so lifting the machine onto the legs was easy- for others you will need to rent a hoist. The bench is a lot better than the prior models with nice finished panels, casters for moving and locking doors in the front. I had it out of the crate and in place in about 2 hours from the time the truck dropped it off. It comes with a computer, monitor and licensed Mach 3 software and has a nice swing around mount for them. The DRO display also has a swing around mount. Running the carriages back and forth was real smooth with the gibs adjusted nicely and no table rock. The new mill head doesn't use a quill, but the entire casting moves up and down on 6 linear rails and twin ball screws. Haven't checked tram yet, but the motions are nice and smooth. There is a nice LED light in the casting that shines on the table and lathe chuck for good vision. JT sent me a service bulletin in advance for a couple things to look for. Apparently, the Chinese changed the motor pulley diameter from the original design, so it was necessary to go into the Mach 3 setup and make a change in the spindle pulley settings. The steps per inch and velocities were all pre set and the initial run through was within 0.001" on my tests, so I will make the fine adjustments later. There were also a couple adjustments necessary in the VFD coding also due to the pulley change. In the service bulletin there was a caution about a possible mis-wiring of the mill sensor and 1 VFD low voltage wire. I checked my machine and indeed they were wrong. The Chinese had connected both mill sensor wires to the same terminal on the Gecko drive, which was not a problem except that the Mach 3 settings were set to receive signals from 2 separate terminals on the Gecko, so it was necessary to move 1 wire to the second Gecko terminal. The other issue was a low voltage wire from the VFD was connected to the wrong terminal and needed to be moved in order for Mach 3 to maintain steady rpm of the spindles. It took a few minutes to do these changes and everything is working fine. At the same time, for my own peace of mind I checked the tightness of all the wiring connections inside the control panel. All the wires are nicely routed and marked with coded tags. I didn't find any loose connections, only a couple of the screw terminals that turned another quarter turn with the screwdriver. I would recommend that anyone do this just in case. There were a couple funny misspellings on the decals too. The lathe chuck is now 6" diameter and the hole through the spindle is 1.5"- a real improvement over the old machines. So far just cutting air and getting familiar with all the functions.