My comical CNC lathe story and does anyone have experience with gang toolposts?

[Rob]

Here is the basic time-line leading to my question... I had an idea to make some things but I knew very little of machining. Did tons of study and realised I will never know enough but didn't give up (stupidly or not I don't know yet). Decided CNC was most in line with what I wanted to do and got some quotes for others to prototype and produce my designs but that didn't work out. After much searching (and begging for loans) I bought a refurbished Orac cnc converted to Mach3 with a home-made auto tool changer. Learning curve (everything) so steep I wanted to just jump off a cliff so many times but stubbornly carried on.

After many trials and tribulations such as needing to change the foreign language half-broken laptop computer it came with and stuff that I won't mention because I know how stupid it will make me look (oh, you have to twist the EM button to reset it?) I have got to the point of manually using the keyboard to jog the tools to make some things. Not the way it was intended, but I have at least now made something and know a lot more about Mach3 and the lathe. Still long way to go with the 2d/cad/cam stuff. Thinking I'll just use the wizards at first.

The immediate problem is the auto tool post constantly slipping out of alignment. For plastic is was fine but lately I have been trying brass and it slips a lot. Maybe I am sometimes feeding it to fast and/or cutting to much depth at one time and this wouldn't be a problem if using the lathe as cnc? I took the changer apart and can see how a couple of set screws hold the tool post alignment gear with the axle, I don't think this is a rigid design. Also the little transformer looking motor that changes the positions is constantly heating up quite hot even though I'm not using it. So I am thinking to change the auto-changer for something else. First I thought about using a quick-change tool post but then I remembered seeing someone had an arrangement for multiple fixed tools on a plate and found out this is commonly referred to as a "gang" tool arrangement. Lots of videos on YouTube for this style of tool holding. I am only going to make small items and from what I've seen I think are non-standard (?) boring type tools that do things like external grooving/parting etc... the number of tools on the Orac could be easily enough to do what I want given the cross travel distance.

Having said all that, does anyone have any experience using a gang tool holder/plate type set up? I see these tool holders can be made specifically to hold regular and modified boring tools directly or they are made to hold multiple ER collet chucks which in turn hold the tools. A company in the States that makes gang tool holders is Omniturn, but maybe someone knows of sources in the UK?

Cheers
Rob