Hi Ard - Yes I'm reviewing the thread at the moment, there have been prior stiff configs, but many of these where based on E70 casting material which won't happen. The tool length and nose geometry is important. One difficulty with Milli is that its not for a specific purpose so its missing a rudder. A general machine tries to cover many things. One day I think the lifting gantry is great the next day I see how it may not be great. So I have to build one & use it to really figure it out. Milli is a project in conflict; the imagined E70 material has not worked out, the path to the "best" configuration has been unclear and the parts geometry has remained fuzzy. Its been a bumpy ride... If I had to give Milli a purpose it would be to finish machine gantries which means the tombstone type moving column (y axis in version you mention) would be too big as it would need to be 1.8m long. So the axis would have to change direction to a smaller moving column design. It also was intended as a benchtop machine but keeps growing to a largish machine! Perhaps I have to cut it back to 300x300x300mm and re-start there. To bring up something not mentioned before, the original spec of 500x500x500mm was supposed to be achieved fairly quickly then I was going to add a 2 axis head to Milli to make it a 5 axis machine. That's well off as well! So Milli may remain as an investigative Moon Shot project. Perhaps I build Frankenrouter as a lifting gantry test machine...

https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/moonshot

I'll reread the thread and pick up the pieces. Peter