Looking for a good production machine

[hoppeg]

I'm looking for a good production machine. All I will be doing with it is drilling and tapping/thread milling with it but I need a machine with a tool changer because I have to drill two holes and thread one every cycle. Does anyone here have any suggestion of a good benchtop size machine with a tool changer that can handle 500 - 600 cycles a day? Working with a 3/8" 24 thread and a #30 drill. Only threading about 3/8" deep and drilling about 2" deep with the #30 drill. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently running this operation on a manual Burgmaster turret drill and would really like to automate because my Burmaster's are past worn out.

[slashmaster]

If that's all you're going to do maybe 2 drill presses is what you need.

[hoppeg]

I need to automate this operation. It's a secondary operation on a part after I take it out of a lathe. If I automate this part it gives the operator time to complete an assembly operation during their cycle time.

[UUU]

Two spindles would be simpler.

[pete from TN]

Honestly I had never heard of a burgmaster turret drill but after looking at it on youtube it is a pretty damn cool machine. Seems to me that you could probably already have a great tool for a drilling and tapping second operation machine there already. Perhaps look into getting a tapping head and add it to the burgmaster and you'd be all set to do what you need. If you absolutely NEED to have a CNC with a toolchanger, and you do not have a ton of cash ready to spend that makes things more difficult. Finding a small machine with a toolchanger and that is cheap and fits in your garage is a real hard thing to do. The small footprint CNC machined built on these pages are, if properly built capable of making some very cool stuff but if you are looking to do a lot of production you can find that the lack of a toolchanger is a real drawback. The TTS system of tooling is a great item for these smaller machines and has proven to be heavy duty enough for my RF45 sized machine easily and this affords you the quick change and high repeatability tool height but it is still not a toolchanger. There are a few who have built toolchangers themselves but none of them are what I would call production ready so far. The closest to a production small footprint machine I have seen thus far has been a product made by one of the founders of Fadal in his early retirement to both make a few bucks and amuse himself at home. He built it off a round column mill and it is extremely impressive and from what he said it is for sale. I am thinking it will be in the $10k range....

Short of that If you have a product that is really gonna make you some money in the long run you might do well to consider a small footprint used VMC machine and either buy one running for cheap at an auction or retrofit an older machine. THe Fadals look very impressive with the VMC 15 a good choice for a small machine. There are some smaller brother VMCs that use an odd vertical toolchanger that seem to be very well made and if you have the room a Matsuura or perhaps a small footprint Milltronics machine would be a good choice. Most of these if you shop smartly and choose wisely could be had for under $10k. This is the direction I was looking recently before I found out I have a cancerous lump in my lung and once I am better I am seriously still looking in this direction to make money from home. Right now I am sitting here and my RF45 CNC machine is quietly plugging away making me some more Fiero logos that I have been selling quite a few of. Good luck with your endeavor and let us know what you wind up with...

Pete

[sansbury]

A Taig could theoretically handle the drilling and thread milling, but I'm not sure about the tapping. There aren't any benchtop machines with ATCs that I know of, other than homebuilt rigs which might not stand up to 1000 tool changes a day. This really sounds like a job for a VMC like a Robodrill.

[TXFred]

The only small machine I know of with an ATC is the Benchman MX.

It's a good machine, but the tool changer never worked right on the one we had at ACC. It would often forget to release the tools before moving the table to the next tool position. This happened on about 10% of the tool changes, so we eventually shelved the tool changer and went to manual tool changes.

Fred

[mwood3]

A Taig could theoretically handle the drilling and thread milling, but I'm not sure about the tapping. There aren't any benchtop machines with ATCs that I know of, other than homebuilt rigs which might not stand up to 1000 tool changes a day. This really sounds like a job for a VMC like a Robodrill.

wouldnt something like a Haas machining center be a bit more economical? Robodrills are crazy expensive, havent checked the used market on them but even a Ti13 new is around 300k fully outfitted if im not mistaken...(maybe a bit more)