I like the idea of the stepper as well but I would have to do a lot of rewiring and setup a fifth axis. I have also looked at making a dedicated air or air over hydraulic cylinder for the machine with a remote power supply hopefully controlled by mach at some point. The pneumatic setup is really not that complicated and Tormach has already proven that it works because there are several people using it. I am wondering if a very large homebuilt cylinder with some delrin guides for the ram could be built on my lathe out of a large chunk of steel and using a stainless ram it would weigh enough that it could just sit atop the flat millhead inside some guides to keep it in place and when actuated would be heavy enough to knock the collet loose. I have mulled it over with art a few times and just have not gotten around to it yet. Sure would be nice to have an electrically actuated pneumatic drawbar on my machine. Then I can make my toolrack like Hoss did on his machine mounted to the table. That would really be cool... May have to revisit the drawbar now that I am feeling better. Peace

Pete