ballscrewbob:
However once you have played with a smaller machine moving up to a MACH based machine is quite a short learning curve
Just out of curiosity did you use GRBL or MACH3 to make your clock face?
It seems to cost money and I can't find out how you interface it to hardware - presumably it is just a tad more modern than LinuxCNC and is not expecting you to have cobweb infested PC with a parallel port 
...R