You might want to post this in the Tormach section here or in the Tormach Yahoo group if you haven't already.
From what I can tell, Tormach limits the feed rate and rapid speed to 65 ipm, which makes it a bit slow for large production runs as each part will take longer to make than it would on the more mainstream CNC mills, which apparently can feed and rapid at much higher speeds (200 ipm?).
The thought is that the part design and CAM time for prototypes and short runs will take the bulk of the overall part production time and that faster mill speeds are not cost effective in that context. This is all covered to some extent in the mill design document available on Tormach's web site.
If you are a hobbyist or a pro that only makes a few parts per run, the mill should be fine. If you want to run parts 24/7 in a competitive market you might want to look at higher range mills.
I'm a hobbyist and the feature set should be just about right for me, so I just placed an order and should have the mill in about 6 weeks.
Mike  |