Just bought TL1.

[DEAN]

Treg,
I'd like to hear updates on your experience with your TL-1. I am curious how the machines are/will hold up.
If you have any thoughts on what that intermittent Z axis resistance is let me know. I just cant figure it out.
Whats your thoughts on the sealing of those bearing trucks. They are kinda exposed with a pushing running over tiny chip type of effect going on. I couldn't find detailed info on the manufacturers website (STAR) regarding the seals. I stay on top of cleanup on mine with a shop vac in those regions. One note I did see on the STAR website is they specifically stated not to use greases with any fillers like MOS2, etc.., just a note. In any case I am pretty convinced that it is not debris getting stuck in the bearings causing the glitch, I've kept mine pretty clean.
I am really leaning towards that 4 pos. tool turret HAAS has for it. $3K I believe. Looks rigid. A little slow, but I only really use four tool and I could put away the Q/C post. Actually get some muti-ops going on. Have you seen that full inclosure for the TL-1??!? I was impressed. Fully encloses the machine. SOLID design.
Went to WESTEC!! I have to have one of those VF-2YT.(30 x 20 x 20).
Right between a VF2 and VF3. Nice. They had some of the machines cutting steel this vs. Al. They had the machines really taking some decent cuts, big tools, really testing the windows, you know!? Newbies were jumping back hiding behind stuff! Pretty funny!
Time to work.
JD

[nervis1]

Yea I saw that 4" drill working, slinging 2lb blue curly chips against the plexiglass. That was pretty cool.

[treg]

must have that hp upgrade. what was the 4 " drill ??? there s no way it could push that????

[nervis1]

Sorry I forgot to add this was a 30 hp VF-5. NOT a TL-1. LOL.

[greenmachinist]

We got our Haas TL-1 about 2 years ago now. Just bought a Royal 3J Air Collet Closer, comes with drawtube, collet holder, air cylinder, pneumatics. Just have to hook up the air supply basically. Haven't bolted it on yet. Waiting for collets & some tooling.

I got a gang tool plate made to use ECI or Omni-turn type gang tool holders. My gang tool holder has 3/4" holes with 3 set screws coming down from the top. If anyone is interested in the gang tool plate, I can send you an engineering drawing of what I drew up.

I'd be interested in seeing pictures of what others have done.

Also bought a coolant pump and kit from Graymills instead of the one from Haas.

Any suggestions on holding small tools / drills in those 3/4" holes?

I've been looking for 3/4" straight shank ER16 holders, preferably with flats already on them.

I've also been looking for 3/4" boring bar adapters/sleeves/split bushings that will holder smaller diameter tools.

Any ideas/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

PS: Also have a TM-1 if anyone has any ideas on how they've tooled / modified that one.

[danil]

My Bobcad is writing G-Code that looks good but the lathe cuts something else-- different radius, for example. Has anyone else good through similar problem.
Thanks,
Dan

[Donkey Hotey]

This thread is so far off topic that I'll bite on this.

What kind of tool? How far out is the radius? Are you using Tool Nose Compensation? Every tool has a radius (no matter how sharp it looks) and if you're trying to make something like a ball, something as small as a 0.005" radius on the tip will cause the ball to be 0.005" out on one side.

Post more specifics and we'll see what we can figure out.

[AMCTony]

Dean

For turning the RPM up you need to adjust the max rpm and spindle frequency settings by proportional amounts. I think that they are settings 131 and 183 off the top of my head. One will have RPM listed (eg. 2000 rpm) and the other will have a freaking big number in it. If you take the rpm and up it by say 1000 rpm to 3000 then the number in the other setting has to be multiplied by 1.5 if I am correct. It has been a while since I did this and it works well on TM and TL machines. Another thing is spindle spool up time that there is a setting for and I do not know what it is. This is to compensate for the time it takes the spindle to go to max rpm without alarming out. The alarm out is caused by the load meter being pegged while the acceleration is taking place.

Also, On my TL-2 I set the RPM max to 2700 as that is what my chuck is rated at. When I first screwed with my settings I did everything correctly but the machine would still only spool to 2000 rpm. Just for the hell of it I went to MDI and typed

G50 S2700;
;

I ran this block of code and then went back to MANUAL screens where I typed 2700 and hit forward to turn the spindle on. This worked and the machine went up to full 2700. I tried the same thing on an older TL-1 with 1800 RPM. Took the machine to 1800 then 2200 then 2500. There was no problem until I hit stop and the machine had to go to 0 RPM from full speed. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the alarm messages. I think that there was no issue with this on the TL-2 due to the 12HP motor vs the 7.5HP motor.

One more thing, If you burn up your machine or components dont blame me. Without knowing exactly what the machine and parts in it were engineered to handle it is impossible to fully and safely trick out these machines.