Recall, the plan for the project is to substitute more rigid mill castings for the small X1 at the heart of the BenchMill 6000. At the same time, we want to keep the plumbing, software integration, and all the cool components of the Intelitek machine.

But what substitute castings to transplant?

This was surprisingly hard to figure out. A key design limitation for the project is the need for the new iron to actually fit in the BenchMill enclosure, which provides only 39″ x 28.5″ x 34″ of interior space to work with.  On the small end of possibility, I immediately discarded the idea of using an X2 “mini mill”. It would certainly fit, but I would likely be swapping one set of rigidity issues for another.

To get the mill up and running I’ve elected to start with a cheap all-in-one touchscreen PC. Basically, all it needs to do at this stage in its life is to (a) not let out the magic smoke, and (b) run the Intelitek CNCBase control software that is set up to work with the BenchMill 6000.

I suspect Mach 3 or 4 might be made to work, but the appeal of the BenchMill was that it *should* work out of the box with the Intelitek software, which is set up to control all of the bells and whistles that come with the machine like the pneumatic shield, automatic tool changer, 4th axis, and pneumatic drawbar.

To test this theory I acquired a Gateway ZX4800 touchscreen from the most reputable of internet auction sites for the exorbitant sum of $85. This is the finest of circa-2012 era all-in-one computers, and other than concerns with the integrated graphics, its Pentium dual core seems to meet the minimum requirements published to run the CNCBase software.