[dharmic]

Lol, mactec's interpersonal skills shine upon us once again. QuinnSjoblom: I don't think he even means it as a personal attack, forget it and move on. There's nothing to be gained by continuing down that dead end.

Still, whilst we're on the Mach3 hatewagon... Will it even support a mill/turn? Looking at the config section, it doesn't look like it supports multiple independent spindles. Or have I missed something? So from what I can see the best you could hope for is you'd need to switch back and forth between C and A spindles using its SwapAxis() function and have either the mill spindle or the lathe spindle running and the other one stepping as a 4th axis. Seems a PITA and is probably why the machine I'm looking at is using GRBL instead (may get an upgrade to LinuxCNC). Just a thought.

[QuinnSjoblom]

Lol, mactec's interpersonal skills shine upon us once again. QuinnSjoblom: I don't think he even means it as a personal attack, forget it and move on. There's nothing to be gained by continuing down that dead end.

Still, whilst we're on the Mach3 hatewagon... Will it even support a mill/turn? Looking at the config section, it doesn't look like it supports multiple independent spindles. Or have I missed something? So from what I can see the best you could hope for is you'd need to switch back and forth between C and A spindles using its SwapAxis() function and have either the mill spindle or the lathe spindle running and the other one stepping as a 4th axis. Seems a PITA and is probably why the machine I'm looking at is using GRBL instead (may get an upgrade to LinuxCNC). Just a thought.

Oh Yes, it's most definitely a PITA to make it work seamlessly. It will take some macros for sure. 2 separate swap axis macros. One for swapping x/z so turning code from fusion cam will work and one for swapping spindle/4th axis. At the same it needs to adjust steps per unit properly between the 2 spindles since the mill spindle and lathe spindle arent gonna have same steps per unit. I don't have the macro skills yet to make it work seamlessly so I'll probably start out with multiple machine profiles for doing turning and 4 axis milling separately just to get it going and test the actual capabilities. Switching to a different control software is definitely an option. I think even mach4 is much easier to deal with when it comes to multiple spindle.
I've looked at the swissmak and it's very interesting. I would love to eventually build something with the same capabilities, maybe a bit heavier duty, linear rail and ballscrews, servos on all axis. That would require the mill turn spindle as well as a pivoting B head. I would probably lay it out differently than the swissmak though, giving the ability to use an actual mill table rather than being limited to just work in the spindle. The other idea I had which I've been talking about in mach3 section is adding a small sub spindle permanently mounted 90 degrees to my main mill spindle instead of an actual rotating B head. This would allow doing work on the face of parts in the 4th. So many different possible approaches for laying out a machine. Space is an issue for me, so that's even more reason for wanting a multipurpose machine. If I had room, I would consider just building a cnc lathe, but it's not really an option for me at this point.