so I made another small change to make use of some scrap rod i had to reinforce the x axis, its that top spar in the new image.

I got some particle board to get a real flat surface for the top layer, drilled some holes, cut some holes, did a light sanding and put some sealant on it, and did the same for the bottom layer. Its got a way cleaner look now, the wires now get tucked underneath through some holes in the top layer and run towards the controller. I finally fixed the controller and the keypad to the fixture with screws instead of tape to make it easier to move around.

Im thinking instead of make a new version of my CAD program, I'll just make a program that will interpret gerber files and send the appropriate commands to the machine. That way I'll be able to use whatever CAD program I want (that exports gerber files), but whatevs, i dunno.