Hello 300 Sniper
Your situation sounds similar to mine. I have a full time job in town and a second job in a company that does dirt work whenever I feel like turning gasoline into noise, getting filthy & being around the guys for a whole weekend. Problem was I was making too much money in the second job & sending a whole lot of taxes back to Washington DC.
So I started my own machining company. I do small jobs in aluminum, SS & mild steel. My dad was a machinist & I remember some of the tricks but I am just an electronics engineer & a chip sweeper. I needed to learn the craft myself.
When the wife gave me permission to buy a machine, I started looking at the cheapest machine I could find and worked my way up. I paused at the Industrial Hobbies machine for quite a while but realized I would have to put in a whole lot of time just assembling the thing. I bought & read ‘Machine Tool Reconditioning’ by Edward F. Connelly. It showed me how much time it could take to make an old machine new again. When it was together, I would still have to integrate the various software packages & troubleshoot their odd interactions. In the end, I would have a one-of-a-kind device that only I could fix.
I finally bought the Tormach. It was big enough for my projects and sturdy enough to call a professional tool. It comes with a staff that knows how all the software & hardware work together and why they sometimes don't.
Specific points from my experience:
- I would buy another one tomorrow if I needed a second machine. I would recommend it to any beginner and any pro with small projects or a small space.
- It has a limited work area. The Briidgeports & etc have much larger work areas. If I needed that kind of work area, I would go to an auction & get a Bridgeport.
- The Tormach came with problems:
Its power switch was wired incorrectly.
The Z-axis slipped down after powering off.
The computer wasn't configured correctly.
The program shutdown occasionally for no apparent reason.
I would expect to have these problems with a homebuilt, a cheap machine, or a Bridgeport. What I wanted was customer support to help me figure out the problems. That is what the money to Tormach is for. All the problems listed had either service bulletins or ready solutions. The customer support guy is always nice on the phone or in emails. I am sure he gets exasperated with new customers not reading the manual but he never vents on us. I should probably send the lady who answers the phone flowers for her calm disposition over my type A personality.
- I bought the 4th axis. It is very sturdy. Problem is I haven’t had the time to use it for a project yet.
- I bought the tooling system. It is pretty slick. I would suggest getting one.
- I had to learn Fortran, Pascal, C, and other programming languages for my job. I dislike software but have had to do it for my full time job. By comparison, the programming language for CNC machines is no harder. I bought the ‘CNC programming handbook’ by Peter Smid and read it through. I am on my second time through it. His companion book ‘CNC programming techniques’ is a good test of what you learned in the first book.
- I bought the Alibre/ Sprutcam CAD/CAM package that Tormach recommends for their machine. I am still plodding my way through the tutorials. I will have to report back later after I get a few projects through them.
- There is no explanation for speeds and feeds. It is clearly magic that only everyone else but me can do. I have studied manuals and scrutinized the general machining forum on this topic. I just have to sigh, replace the broken bit, and buy another. I hope I learn this before I die.
Bottom line is I picked the right company to help me learn CNCing. The other right choice I made is following the CNC zone forums. It is amazing how many smart machinists there are on this site. Just when you come up with a complicated way to attack a problem, some real machinist here shows you how to do it with two thumbtacks and some super-glue.
I see you are about 3 hours from me. If you want to see a Tormach, operated by an amateur like you, shoot me a line.  |