sounds doable think I'll just change the steppers and drives then

could you maybe send me some links for the stuff I'll need?

greatly appreciate your inputs!

ps. for the C-axis I'll attach an auxilary servo on the final spindle but let's not worry about that for now

I have very little experience with mach3 by now so it wouldn't be much of a step back to get started with another software (i.e. linuxcnc) so I guess I'll just follow your advice all the way
-linuxcnc basically has the same programming capabilities as Mach3 right?