So now that the Tormach CNC Mill has been out for a while and the Guys that have one have had some time getting use to it, what are your thoughts on this Machine, both Good and Bad?

Also, how have you got your Tormach set up? Did you Purchase the Tormach Stand? Build your own Stand? What type of Stand did you build?

And finally, is there anything you wish was different or would be changed with the Tormach and why?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Willyb

Mine is just barely set up and operational, though I haven't started using it yet. Soon, though.

This one had to get moved to the basement and I was pretty impressed with how easy that was since it had to be disassembled to get it down the stairs. The problems I had were pretty minor - mostly tapped holes that need to be chased. The electrical connections were very professional and easy to keep track of.

See the link below to see where it ended up.

http://member.newsguy.com/~mphenry/Tormach-Running.JPG

Mike

I have had mine set up for about a month, with deluxe stand and 4th axis.

It is very rigid and precise, a real step up from my previous benchmill.

Stand is a good value imo, rigid and well made.

Control software is good, needs better documentation, but this is available online.

Would get a different pendant, although functional, is very basic and could stand improvement.
Wayne

I have had mine set up for about a month, with deluxe stand and 4th axis.

It is very rigid and precise, a real step up from my previous benchmill.

Stand is a good value imo, rigid and well made.

Control software is good, needs better documentation, but this is available online.

Would get a different pendant, although functional, is very basic and could stand improvement.
Wayne



Hi drwc

What Mill did you have before you got the Tormach? Sounds like there is a big differance between the two?
I also heard that the Pendent wasn't the best. Mainly because of it's limited functions? Thanks for your thoughts.

Regards
Willyb

previously i was using a Prazi mill, round column.

I had converted it to cnc, but kept the acme screws, which had no way of compensating for backlash and overall mill was not rigid enough.

I have new ball screws for this mill and I think i am going to convert it to a cnc grinder.

I also have a Prazi lathe as well.

My thoughs are it uses a pirated version of our G201 drive. My thoughts are anyone who cuts corners this way may likely be cutting a whole lot of other corners elsewhere.

Caveot emptor; integrity is an all or nothing kind of thing. If it's missing in one place, be looking for it to be missing someplace else too.

What I wish was different? That Tormach would stop using a pirate copy G210 REV-3 drive of course! It looks like a darn good machine; I'd buy one as a test-bed for our new drives but I really can't because it uses stolen copies of our G201 drive design. I'll have to look elswhere.

Mariss

Ive had the machine for about 2 months now and have been really pleased with it.

Im brand new to CNC and was able to make this little gem after only a couple weeks:
http://gtmbuild.com/parts/oil-bypass/images/IMG_4564c.jpg

http://norcal-cobras.com/cnc/oil-bypass/images/IMG_4547.jpg

Greg has had nothing but integrity in dealing with me as a customer. I'd definately buy a Tormach again.

David

My thoughs are it uses a pirated version of our G201 drive. My thoughts are anyone who cuts corners this way may likely be cutting a whole lot of other corners elsewhere.

Caveot emptor; integrity is an all or nothing kind of thing. If it's missing in one place, be looking for it to be missing someplace else too.

What I wish was different? That Tormach would stop using a pirate copy G210 REV-3 drive of course! It looks like a darn good machine; I'd buy one as a test-bed for our new drives but I really can't because it uses stolen copies of our G201 drive design. I'll have to look elswhere.

Mariss


Hi Mariss

If you wouldn't purchase a Tormach, what would you recommend for a similar size machine that has similar quality? I really think the basic mechanics of the Tormach Mill and think it is a solid design. Another CNC Mill I have been looking at is the Smithy. A little on the pricey side. It also looks like a well built platform. I really like the idea of the Linear Rails for the Z Axis. They now have a smaller bother to the 1240, it is called the 932. It has 20" x 10" x 10" travels. Not sure of the price for the 932? Anyway, what would you recommend for a well built bench top CNC Mill? Interested on your thoughts.

Regards
Willyb

Ive had the machine for about 2 months now and have been really pleased with it.

Im brand new to CNC and was able to make this little gem after only a couple weeks:
http://gtmbuild.com/parts/oil-bypass/images/IMG_4564c.jpg

http://norcal-cobras.com/cnc/oil-bypass/images/IMG_4547.jpg

Greg has had nothing but integrity in dealing with me as a customer. I'd definately buy a Tormach again.

David



Hi Divid

Your cover looks great. What's it for?
How do you find the Tormach for vibration while machining? After watching the Videos, you can hear allot of vibrations? This may be casued by the higher material removal rates?
Have you had any problems with the VFD going off line and the Spindle Motor stopping for no reason? I have heard a couple other fellows with this problem.

Sounds like you are fairly happy with your Tormach.

Reagrds
Willyb

Willyb, its a oil bypass plate for a LS6 engine. It provides clearance for the shift linkage in the FFR GTM Im building.

The spindle problem can be one of two things. One has been solved with a heatsink on the vfd controller. (mine came installed). On faster computers, if you dont set your voltage on the vfd while under computer control, it will run the spindle out of the speced RPM range and shut down. Simply adjusting the voltage as outlined in the manual will take care of it.

Im guessing what you hear in vibration, is harmonics of the stand and its associated sheetmetal. It will act as a speaker and amplify any noise the machine makes while cutting. I havent heard anything to be concerned about.

You mention converting a mill to cnc here: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27574

Are you converting a mill and buying one also?

David

My thoughs are it uses a pirated version of our G201 drive.

Mariss, that's the first I've heard about this. How did you find out? A friend at work has Geckos on his bench mill, and they don't look anything like the Tormach drives. Is it possible to copy circuitry and have the layout come out so different? (Ignorant mechanical engineer question...)

Best regards,

Randy

Randy, If you do a search, you should find all the details, the topic has been covered before on cnczone.

David

Randy, If you do a search, you should find all the details, the topic has been covered before on cnczone.

Ah--I did some searching and found the "Tormach and Gecko a friendly debate" thread over in the Electronics section (I've never been beyond the Tormach and Benchtop mill forums...) Sounds like a can of worms not to reopen.

Your Honor, I withdraw the question.

Best regards,

Randy

I'm not sure anymore what to do about this; its been around a long time. The Tormach machine uses a my ripped off drive design made by Protobyte, relabled by Tormach as a Tordrive-2000.

Greg Jackson a few years ago said essentially "suck it up, move on, youv'e been ripped off and what are you going to do about it?"

There was in truth nothing I could do about it. There are no legal protections against predators like Greg and Steve K. of Protobyte. They in fact can do that.

All I could do was to point out the injustice. When it seemed I was making an ass of myself, I just paused but didn't stop. I have a reasonably good business sense.

After a while it simply became automatic. Point out the facts but don't belabor the point. I did move on but I could never leave alone someone elses' dirty hands had perverted my design into what passes as the Prodrive-2000 or the TorDrive-2000. It is my G201 REV3 drive design.

This is all real. I have the documentation that proves the drive is a rip-off, available on request.

Why am I so nuts about this? I ask myself the same question. The only answer I come up with is I have this real black and white thing when it comes to principles. There is right and there is wrong.

Wrong is to take another man's work and call it your own. I cannot think of anything worse.

You call it a "can of worms". That's fine. But what if it was your "can of worms"?

Mariss

You call it a "can of worms". That's fine. But what if it was your "can of worms"?

Replied by email.

Best regards,

Randy

Is the issue with Protobyte or Tormach?

Mike

A friend at work has Geckos on his bench mill, and they don't look anything like the Tormach drives.

Oh man, was I wrong. I opened up the cabinet again, and see the axis drives up near the top. The do look like the size of Geckos after all! I was remembering the other boards, which are much larger. I stand by my "ignorant mechanical engineer" comment in the earlier post. :(

Best regards,

Randy

While I generally steer clear of these “sour grapes” discussions, I feel compelled to answer when Mariss makes libelous statements, putting quotes around things that I never said, or things that have never been represented by Tormach.

While I am not in a position to make judgment on the intellectual property ownership of other companies, I can talk about what I know. I do know that Gecko is selling a stepper drive that is derivative of a drive first sold by Centent, and that Protobyte is selling a drive that is a derivative of the drive sold by Gecko. I understand that Mariss designed the drive while working at Centent, where he was a part owner. I don’t know if Mariss had permission to use the same design when he left and started a competing company. When I called Centent to see what the story was, they didn’t seem very happy about the situation. I think they are still making the drive.

Whatever the case, it is simply not within the scope of an equipment manufacturer using components to mediate squabbles among component suppliers. The intellectual property ownership is something that those companies need to work out among themselves and within the legal system.

We have worked very hard during the development of the PCNC 1100 to quantify component quality and failure rates. The early prototypes, more than 3 years ago, were built with Gecko drives. We found a high failure rate and unacceptable engineering practices on the part of Gecko. It’s just one of several suppliers that didn’t make the grade. They’re not alone; we had to reject a famous brand VFD and several Chinese companies for similar reasons.

I do not recommend against Gecko. The higher failure rate of the Gecko is a minor inconvenience to the hobbyist, an inconvenience that is more than offset by the low cost, replacement policy and support provided by Gecko. Different suppliers are appropriate to different customers. I salute Gecko for their support of the CNC hobbyist community. Gecko is a fine choice for the owner-builder but they just didn’t make it as a supplier to the PCNC 1100.

Greg Jackson
Tormach

Nothing like giving a kick in the head to a guy after you take his property. Par for the course I guess.

Mariss

My thoughts are anyone who cuts corners this way may likely be cutting a whole lot of other corners elsewhere.

This is a very valid observation.

First of all, I'll state that I'm pleased with my Tormach (serial 10000000 binary or 128 decimal--I like the roundness of the binary number better ;) ) and would buy it again (but I know where I will buy replacement axis drives when the Tormach ones fail.)

The machine is light-years ahead in stiffness than my Sherline 5400. Accuracy so far seems a wash--I'd CNC-optimized my Sherline by relocating the spindle motor behind the column and replacing the brass leadscrew nuts by cast Moglice. It is a treat having quick-change, robust toolholders and being able to confidently run multiple-tool programs.

But, and Greg makes no bones about it (you can all read his statement about needing a full-time QC inspector on-site in China) there is significant corner-cutting outside the primary structure and mechanics (bearing ways, leadscrews and table finish.)

A typical case in point is the rear Y-axis way cover. The front Y-axis cover is wide enough to span the ways and does a good job protecting them from swarf. It is flat. The rear cover is peaked so coolant will drain off it. Unfortunately, it is obvious that the factory has taken a flat cover and pleated it in the middle to provide the peak. Simple trigonometry can let you extrapolate the fact that the cover is too narrow to fully cover the ways, and a good half-inch on each side is unprotected. This is inexcusable.

The machine stand needs to be at least an inch deeper. The mill base is so close to the front of the stand that the Y axis is almost touching the front flanges of the chip trays, and together with the sloppy punching of the holes in the trays obviate bolting the left and right tray halves together. Fortunatly I used silicone caulk on all mating tray edges, so they are at least "glued" together.

A small detail is the over-center spring mounting of the spindle lock. Each end of the spring is hooked to a cantilevered capscrew, and the screws are long enough to visibly flex. A small detail, yes, but I wince every time I change a tool and see them, and will turn new spring mounts sooner or later.

The auxiliary pendant that Tormach sells is a simple USB numeric keypad with custom keycaps. It allows jogging of the axes while being able to sit it on the vise or machine table for convenience. Unfortuately, in Mach2 (the Tormach uses a custom-configured version for its control) uses shift-arrows for fast jogging. There is no shift key on the pendant. I opened up mine and rang out the keyboard matrix, and there is no combination that will provide shift. Thus, when jogging I have one hand on the main keyboard and one hand on the pendant. The only solution is to buy an X-keys or other programmable keypad. Or, as I might do, put in a small latching switch and run wires up to the main keyboard so I can toggle [shift].

My Tormach has only about 20 running hours on it, and I have had to adjust the Z gib three times so far to keep the head from dropping when I power down the machine. The manual says that there should be 40-80 lbs drag on the Z ways, and Greg says that some "bedding in" is normal, so I'll have to just monitor this. I had to adjust the gib before I even ran the machine, it was so loose.

The 120V auxiliary receptacles in the base of the control cabinet have inappropriate terminals for the fast-on connectors of the wiring harness (they are the hook-shaped solder terminals.) The fast-ons are loose enough that brushing against one with my finger dislodged it. Needless to say I have ordered a full set of name-brand replacements from an electrical supplier. I don't want to take chances with line-voltage circuits.

The vise Tormach sells is very nice. It is a Conquest Industries Mini-Mag with the Tormach name instead of Magnum. Unfortuantely, the front flange of the table chip shield frame is tall enough that it interferes with the vise handle. You can't "twirl" the handle to take up slack in the vise, so I'm using a ratcheting box-end wrench on the vise.

Likewise, the monitor/keyboard arm is nice and sturdy, but the actual keyboard surface is cheap Chinese Melamine-skinned low-density particle board that arrived chipped and stained. Just one more substandard component to replace.

The latches on the base access doors are sloppy enough that the doors rattle, but nothing that some felt disks don't cure.

I haven't used the coolant system yet, so I can't give it a review. Other than the fact that the mounting adapter has female straight threads instead of NPT and buggered up the plastic Loc-Line clone coolant fitting when I assembled it. I ran an NPT tap into the adapter, which improved matters considerably.

Lots of peripheral cost-cutting (these are only things that I have noticed in the month I have owned the machine,) which I hope is made up for by basic machine quality. Time will only tell. I'm still in the new-owner euphoria stage. ;)

Randy

Of course there are going to be corners cut! This is a machine that costs ¼ of what the next step up costs. I don’t know if you have looked at those other mills but they, too, cut many corners. I don’t care if my spring bends or my bolt holes in my table are not aligned. There are $50K machines in another forum with serious problems. It has a cheap pendant- so what. Let’s get a LCD touch screen instead. Before you know it you are at the $40k mark and have lost the whole point of this mill in the first place- to get CNC to the people who cant afford / justify a $40k machine. I bought the machine to make parts- and make parts it does.

As far as the drive goes- I don’t care. From what I have read the drive is probably a ripoff of a ripoff. The fact is that competition is what drives this country. You can’t patent your drive & someone copied it? Then make a new model that is bigger, faster, or with more features than the “knockoff”. It happens every day. Happens to us too. It is what keeps us from getting stale. Do something to put your product ahead again.

Just my thoughts.

I guess a former customer not buying your product is a kick in the head, and theft to boot?

I suppose as the customer of a former customer, when I place my order I'm giving another kick by not buying the product?

I like the Gecko designs, I like the tech support I've seen posted, but I don't understand doing business this way. The post above prompted me to research further than I already had. I did the research, and what I found is far and away the best product for the money on the market. In fact, the only product that can do what I need at a price that I can afford. I placed my order for a complete new mill today.

In my business, when someone knocks off my design, I'm in there with the customer with a better product that costs less before they know what hit them. A lost sale hurts; the market seeing a loss of integrity hurts more and might result in a whole lot more lost sales. It's not my place to give business advice, but if it were me, I'd do that kind of lamenting in private with my friends at the bar, not where other customers can see it. (And to them, I might say plenty!) I don't like it when it happens to me, either, but I'll never under any circumstances let anyone see me suffer.

What I hope for is to see compelling reasons to upgrade my machine for better performance in the future, not this kind of stuff. I hope being a customer of a former customer doesn't put me on the outside, because I see a lot of future in this kind of stuff.

--97T--

This is like watching your Mother-in-Law go over the cliff in your new Mercedes. I think the Tormach is a solidly built machine but I have a great deal of loyality to Mariss and Gecko. Almost singlehandly he has reshaped the low cost motor drive market. His support and interest in the market is legendary. Good news is that Gecko continues to move forward with products like the 202 and the recent 203 designs and its getting harder to copy products with FPGA's and embedded processors.

Maybe they will try to copy the G100 series and go broke (:-o

Tom Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

The post above prompted me to research further than I already had. I did the research, and what I found is far and away the best product for the money on the market. In fact, the only product that can do what I need at a price that I can afford. I placed my order for a complete new mill today.

Was it the chinese precision ground ballscrews?
The top of the line stepper motor system?
Pretty motor cover that hides that huge z-slide?
Or the pirated gecko drive?

Of course there are going to be corners cut!

I said that up front. Don't get me wrong--I like my Tormach and would buy it again. But what grates on me is unnecessary flaws. Like the table chip shield frame interfering with the vise handle. That is something that should have been easily caught at the design and prototyping stage. It would cost nothing to have done it right.

It has a cheap pendant- so what.

That looks to me like Greg and company grabbed the first thing that they laid eyes on without fully thinking it through. Who'da thunk that people might want to fast-jog using the pendant? ;) If I'd known about that limitation up front, I'd have bought a $99 X-keys that would fully work, rather than the $42 pendant that almost works.

The fast-ons are loose enough that brushing against one with my finger dislodged it.

I have dealt with UL and CSA on line-voltage issues. This is a safety flaw, not a "corner cut" and machines shouldn't be allowed to go out the door like that. My machine is down right now while I redo the line voltage receptacles and harness.

Just my thoughts.

And I appreciate them, partsman. I'm a mechanical engineer who has been designing laboratory instruments for 25 years now and am probably too critical of stuff. But I'm not being picky for picky's sake, it's more of "geez, the product would give such a better impression if all this obvious stuff was caught early in the development."

I'm using my Tormach almost every day, at least a little, and tomorrow I need to adjust the Z gib for the fourth time in about 20 hours of running. I hope it finally beds in soon! I'm afraid I'm gonna run out of adjustment... :(

Randy

Was it the chinese precision ground ballscrews?
The top of the line stepper motor system?
Pretty motor cover that hides that huge z-slide?
Or the pirated gecko drive?

From what I could find, the accuracy is actually published, and is an order of magnitude better than anything else I could find with equivalent x-y-z range.

I don't know about the stepper motors, the z-slide, or the drive. What I did find is evidence that Tormach stands behind their products and upgrades the design when problems come up. What I didn't find, is evidence of users buying the product and then being unable to use it as advertised.

It looked to me like the choices were; buy a ready made machine with pitifully small table travel, buy an import mill and retrofit everything, buy a used 'real' cnc, or start from scratch and build everything from the ground up. Since I design and build machines for a living, my motivation isn't to build this machine as a hobby. It was to use this machine to cut the cost of building other machines, which fortunately for me is hobby and occupation rolled into one. I can't really use a 'mini' mill. I didn't want to retrofit a Harbor Freight mill, sounds like fun but I have other hobbies and want to cut steel next week. I used to own a 'real' cnc, and I've spent near the cost of this whole machine in repairs on it. If I ever buy another used one, it will be with the intention that if an axis card fails, the entire control and drive system will come off to be replaced with a pc-based control. As things progress, I see a big market for this kind of retrofit. The proprietary controls are just ruinously overpriced.

Anything that I find not to my liking on this machine, I will probably fix it myself and send the information back to Greg.

If the stepper motors are not "top of the line", I don't care. I see that components are chosen on the basis of functionality, cost, and reliability. This is what I do in my designs as well. For instance, some of my customers specify Allen Bradley compnents in their equipment for perfectly valid reasons. For the ones that don't impose this requirement, I can supply a machine control with all the bells and whistles for about half the cost -- around $15,000 LESS, just for the control box and engineering. So the "top of the line" argument has to have a context to be meaningful.

And at any rate, I can afford to upgrade as necessary, and I will probably do so whenever Gecko and Mach get the new product off the ground. I want rigid tapping, and I will get it eventually, even if I have to design it myself.

Anyway, the thread was supposed to be about whether people have had problems with their Tormach mills. Since I don't have mine yet, I'm not contributing anything on topic, so I won't belabor it any more in this thread. When I get the thing, I'll report back honestly. Edit: Woops, that's the other thread. Anyway, I'll give more thoughts on it when it arrives.

--97T--

I have been reading this whenever I get the time. I got my machine about a year ago and the serial number I believe is 17. Before I purchased a machine I shop around and even visit other owners to see the machines first hand. I am very happy with the machine and the price I paid. Yes I had problems with the spindle drive, but Greg help me through it and in the end I was very happy.
Why did I buy this machine? It reminded me when Tree mill came out with their CNC (about 1980). Both machines were designed from the ground up for CNC. It was not just a CNC retrofit kit added to a standard mill.
I have been programming machines since 1980 and currently program anything from 3 axis mill to multi-spindle/multi-turret screw machines to swiss screw machines. I purchase my mill more as a hobby then to make money (even though I have). In the end, I would buy another one. I just wish Greg would build a CNC lathe to match the mill.