I understand the rat's nest part, at least.
For many, many years I have been adding things to the computer/video
system and all the wires have been hanging from their respective
connectors, and dangling down to the floor. HUGE rat's nest, and just
about impossible to work with.
My computer "desk" is an old office credenza about 8 feet long and
then there's a 5 opening cabinet that contains various DVD-VHS-CD-audio
things below the wall mounted flat screen TV.
Anyway, recently I made a 5" channel behind the credenza to hold all
the wiring in back and just below the top of it. The rat's nest is the
same size, but at least I can get to all the wiring, and, there is lots
less stress on all the connectors back there.
Once small addtional point: Wherever there are a lot of wires going
into something, like the back of the computer, it pays to take a
picture, print it out and keep it handy for those times when you have to
tear it down for some reason.

By the way, I am very jealous of your NC machine. I had a chance to
work on a Bridgeport EasyTrak for a while at a votech night school. It
sure was easy to get used to for producing parts.

Pete Stanaitis
-------------------

Ignoramus23708 wrote:
Set up a little fiberglass ridge on the read coolant drain channel, so
that coolant all goes to the proper drain.

Then I did what I was afraid to do for a while: I removed a huge
amount of unused wires that went from cabinet to the pendant (where
the control was). I only kept the wires I am using. This way, I
removed a lot of confusing, unused wiring, and made room in the
pendant arm to lay new wires (power to monitor, USB, more signal wires
etc). Kept copious notes and the mill is back to working condition,
but less of a rats' nest.

i