It seems to me that the MiniMill does not have the travel that it could have in the Y direction if the "throat" was a little deeper. Has anyone tried extending the spindle forward by a couple of inches to even up (center) the Y travel? Or am I missing something other than losing rigidity? Thank you for your help.
Not sure if you've seen the review video that points out some of the weaknesses in the MiniMill but I probably wouldn't stretch it out any farther forward without reinforcing it in some way. Not that any of the weaknesses are all that problematic from the hobby users standpoint they merely limit how aggressively you can make cuts. That being said, I am actually slowly putting together such a system. I added a 20x80x250 at the back to stiffen the column and another 20x80x110 between the column and the Z-axis to create 20mm additional throat depth. This brings bit out to about the midway point on the Y-axis. The current model doesn't show much in the way of additional plating but I will probably add more when I have the mill up and running. I also intend to epoxy bond the additional 20x80 members to the adjacent C-Beam to give it a bit more rigidity. With the extended X-axis the usable area will be approximately 160x250mm.
