............Or you would cry. After trying to wait patiently for many weeks I get an email from my shipping agent that my Tormach PCNC is about to arrive in New Zealand. After waiting a few more days I call him and find they have lost it! After a few polite phone calls and emails - then a blunt email he calls back with the dreaded saying - "the good news is"........ we have found it, it has been in (our home town) Wellington for I don't know how long. "The bad news is" the case is damaged and the smaller case is wet.

I might be lucky and find the crunch has missed the important bits, and that the other parts are in plastic bags. Delivery is 7am tomorrow. I hope to post photos soon of my finished steel stand etc - and hopefully undamaged PCNC.

I have my fingers crossed for you buddy. I cant wait to see some pics and hear how it all comes out.

The anticipation must be killing you.

Is the small crate tooling?

Finally in my workshop! Really impressed with the machine! So much bigger and better than my aah....other NC.

Inspecting the damage - The crate took a small crunch near the X stepper - It may have been shunted hard against the end of travel as it was hard to free up that slide using the belt system. Moves fine now. If so I hope the ball/nut etc is not damaged. Will be a week or two before I get a computer and start to run it - I will then do some reversing direction backlash tests etc to see if anything shows up.

The small crate that was wet seems fine - the insides were a bit shaken up with some parts loose despite the really good packing from the team at Tormach - must have been some good storms in the Pacific Ocean lately!

Keen, I hope all is well with your Tormach. It is indeed an impressive machine if you are moving up from a converted mini-mill or small gantry or (as in my case) Sherline.

Out of curiosity, what is the serial number of your machine? Does it have the electronics cabinet fan? The improved (flat) Y-axis waycovers? Is the table drain still on the right or have Tormach moved it to the left side?

Best regards,

Randy

Hi Randy
The Serial no. is 286 (does that mean they have only made 286 machines in total? if that is so, I find it hard to see how Tormach are making enough profit to support their overheads - I suppose the other parts of the business do that)?

It has a drain left and right, flat profile Y covers,(does anyone know - how do they stand blue hot chips from carbide machining)?

It has no cooling fan? Maybe I don't have the latest model? or maybe Tormach are not always fitting them?

Oh and "Chuck reamer" - thanks for your concern the other day.

The Serial no. is 286 (does that mean they have only made 286 machines in total? if that is so, I find it hard to see how Tormach are making enough profit to support their overheads - I suppose the other parts of the business do that)?


Well, I've got machine Serial no. 014 dated 08/2005 so that's 286 machines in two years. I'm sure they've sold a good a good number of TTS parts over that time period as well...

Hi Randy
The Serial no. is 286 (does that mean they have only made 286 machines in total? if that is so, I find it hard to see how Tormach are making enough profit to support their overheads - I suppose the other parts of the business do that)?

It has a drain left and right, flat profile Y covers,(does anyone know - how do they stand blue hot chips from carbide machining)?

It has no cooling fan? Maybe I don't have the latest model? or maybe Tormach are not always fitting them?



I just got my machine about 3 weeks ago, and it only drains on the left side or the stand. But on both sides of the table itself if thats what you are talking about?

I have accordion style Y axis covers, I'm not sure what my serial number is but I wonder how much better the new way covers are?

The Serial no. is 286 (does that mean they have only made 286 machines in total?

Well, mine is serial 10000000. At least in binary--it's #128, delivered last October.

It has a drain left and right,

That is good. I had to add the left table drain, and it has helped a lot. I also plumbed copper tubing into both drains to carry the effluent to the left side of the machine base.

It has no cooling fan? Maybe I don't have the latest model? or maybe Tormach are not always fitting them?

The schematic in the latest manual online says that four-digit serial numbers will have the fan. I took that to mean that they are re-starting the serial numbers at 1000 when the new electronics cabinet arrangement is introduced.

I installed a cabinet fan over the weekend. The stepper drivers are right at the top of the cabinet, and aAfter half an hour or more of running the cabinet top is perceptibly warmer than the rest of the cabinet.

I have accordion style Y axis covers, I'm not sure what my serial number is but I wonder how much better the new way covers are?

The current Y-axis covers are accordion-style but they are straight across the top and well-supported (stiffeners in every "mountain" fold). The original Y-axis covers were also accordion, but sloped to a peak across the top, and only had 2 or 3 stiffeners.

Best regards,

Randy

Mine was ordered some where around February 2006 and is numbered 033 or 037, I'm to lazy to check. So I think it probably started at 001. I think mine was in Tormach's second shipment from China. At the time I figured they where shipping something like 20 to 30 units every three months so it looked like averaging 100 in 2006 (but they were continually back-ordered. If they reach 300 + by the end of this year it will be more like 200 for 2007.

I figure the average spend is around USD10,000 so that would be a revenue of USD 2,000,000 in 2007. Assuming an operating margin of 20 to 25% that's a gross return on investment of USD 450,000, before taxes etc. With an operating cost of say USD350,000 they would have to be buying in at 60% of their sales price. Whether the numbers are good or bad depends on how it looks as a net return on investment.

Just a piece of uninformed speculation.

Phil


Hi Randy
The Serial no. is 286 (does that mean they have only made 286 machines in total? if that is so, I find it hard to see how Tormach are making enough profit to support their overheads - I suppose the other parts of the business do that)?

It has a drain left and right, flat profile Y covers,(does anyone know - how do they stand blue hot chips from carbide machining)?

It has no cooling fan? Maybe I don't have the latest model? or maybe Tormach are not always fitting them?

Oh and "Chuck reamer" - thanks for your concern the other day.

Yeah - that sounds about right Phil. Not a huge return for a lot of R & D - resulting in a brilliant product/construction process design. We all get to benifit from Tormachs patient approach.