I was unable to research the Machining tech, removing this mod (which in turn gets rid of the lathe requirement) allowed me to research it. Note before removing I researched lathe, electric, and circuitry. I also build a lathe just in case. I was able to select and "start" research, but my colonists just would not do anything, could not even force them to research. Just in case I build an ENIAC and powered it and that was not the problem either. I did not find errors in the log yet that would point to it being a problem. I do have a large number of mods as well, but I don't think any were conflicting with this one. I checked a conflict checker and use RimPy.