I own several Fadals. The cabinets on the back take approx 13-14” however that rear door they made to open to the back which requires approx “24 more space to open. If you have the coolant basin up next and glued to the column like we do then you have to add rear splash guards for the influx of volume rushing down or it goes all over the floor. Our shop is large so we just have a isle behind the machines you can walk and also to store bins of material so it’s not on the floor In front of the machines. I can see with a retrofit that it would be tempting to change it up. We have a bed mill it was easy to flip the control box to the side but adding a tool changer casting arm like Fadal had makes it difficult to put one on each side of the column. The only other choice I see is mounting to the enclosure back side but then if it needs to be moved in the future that’s going to be a issue besides the sheet metal cabinets were not designed for the extra weight. One of our machines a previous owner added bars across the bottom cabinet basin to make it more durable and I suppose so you could stand inside for maintenance but the bigger issue is the small 7/16 fasteners 12” apart or so that attach to the column and if shifted the glue tears and you develop a leak. A nasty leak at that. Frankly by design there isn’t really a better way to do it. Whether you prefer and choose another route it’s clearly your choice but from someone who knows these machines well I would suggest leaving it as is or if you must consider moving the rear facing cabinet so it is mounted on its side, back to back with the side cabinet. It will stick out further but at least you can push the machine up against the wall which would conserve about 16” of additional floor space. The other option is use a different shaped cabinet (more$$) and all new components that are not as large. Not sure if you plan to reuse the inverter drive or transformer but that would cost more for little space saved. Perhaps if you went to a servo driven spindle you could save a lot of space since the control is much smaller. It could be a trade off in torque but higher rpm may offset that need depending on materials your cutting. Our Fanuc robodrills can machine much faster than the fadals and they use servo motors directly coupled on the spindle at a much higher rpm. A few choices you have it will be interesting to see what you do.

Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Ok well bit of an update and a little twist in the plan.!!