Another Mill - Haas, Another Tormach, or a Novakon?

[kvom]

When I got my mill (two boxes) the delivery guy was able to drag it up my slanted driveway AND over the lip of the garage floor pretty easily with his pallet jack. I use my pallet jack to move the mill+stand on occasion. It's quite easy on a flat floor.

Since I have an auto lift in my garage I was able to lift the mill onto the stand solo. With a cherry picker I think you'd want one or two helpers for safety.

[hjl4]

Bam, if you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for the GT27? Average rough number would be fine. I always see them advertised on Ebay, but $5000 reserved bid tells me they go for a lot more.
I don't think any mill was specifically design to be moved around by a pallet jack. It just happens that it can be done. My own personal mill is vintage 1980 Tree J300, and I too can slip a pallet jack under it and move it.
Either way, I find that if it couldn't be done with a pallet jack, people would just find another way to do it. After all, necessity is the mother of inventions.

[jid2]

I would move past hobby grade if you are doing real work with the machine. I just sold my hobby grade machine a few weeks ago and am now prepping to put a real machine in my garage. After using a real machine at work I have learned how much faster/productive a real machine is.

My garage has the same 7 foot door. There are still a good number of machines that will work:

- Haas Mini Mill (not the Mini Mill 2)
- Sharp 2412 or 2414
- Bridgeport GX410 or GX710
- Chevalier 1418 VMC
- Fanuc Robodrill
- Brother TC series

If you don't need the spindle speed a Mini Mill over a Super Mini Mill will be cheaper, and run on single phase. BUT - you should see the beautiful sight of running Titanium at 500 SFM with nice tooling like these guys. The rigidity increase of a Mini Mill will likely allow you to remove double the material based on increasing DOC only. Your surface finish will be massively improved.

IMCO | M525 enDURO 5-Flute High Performance End Mill with Corner Radius


There are really good deals to be had on those used Chevalier 1418 VMC's, like under $20k no problem. just gotta deal with a discontinued controller, but it's still supported. Used Mini Mills go for $20-$25k.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Wow awesome info guys!

I paid ~12k ( I think) for the lathe shipped from Florida to Iowa. Look up my video "ebay garbage gt-27" something like that.

Grade 5 Ti at 500 sfm isn't possible. I don't think through spindle coolant would do it. You have a video?

EDIT: Looking those mills now

[LeeWay]

Okay, I don't really have an issue with calling these hobby grade machines, however I would prefer light production instead. Mine is actually a full production machine making light parts, but lots of them. Quite a step up from what one might consider hobby grade. Even my home made 80/20 mill was considered by me to be semi-production quality. I did have to change spindle bearings every year on it, but it worked all the time. 8 to 10 hours a day 6 and 7 days a week. The torus doesn't have to run nearly that much. Probably 7 hours a day 5 days a week now to keep up with production. Just a lot better machine and it taps. Priceless! Hobby grade? Maybe a bit of an under estimation.

[MRM RCModels]

I love my torus pro. Would classify it as light production even though I'm using it as a full production machine now.

Would recommend it for the price range. Look in the $20k range if you want a vmc type (which is made for constant usage).

[SCzEngrgGroup]

And don't forget that when a Novakon breaks down, it's usually quick, easy, and inexpensive to repair. When a Haas or Brother breaks down, it will likely be a very different story, as you'll be paying a technician, including travel time, to come fix it, and buying proprietary parts. And beware of used commercial machines - they're often being sold for good reason....

Faster isn't always better. Some of us don't NEED higher capacity. I can handle my production needs just fine with my Torus Pro, and still have all the business I want. Once the ATC is done, it will be even better, as I won't have to sit there and wait for toolchanges. Having a Haas would gain me nothing, other than a large debt, and bragging rights. I could make better use of two Torus Pros, because I'm not making 1000 of each part, and the machine sits idle a good percentage of the time anyway.

Regards,
Ray L.

[wwendorf]

I agree, my machine does light production. I have the 770 and love it. I really wish I had a more recent version of Mach3 tho. I just had to resetup my whole controller last night because it locked out the keyboard from being able to jog the machine after I interrupted a tool touch-off routine.

As far as a tool setter, check out cncneeds.com. Their toolsetter is wonderful and the will soon have active and passive mode setters available. And it's less than 1/2 the cost of Tormach's.

I still say to this day that if I had 150k to spend, I'd buy a bunch of smaller machines instead of 1 big haas. Even if I couldn't go as fast with the smaller machines, I'd certainly be able to make a lot more parts. I call the concept cell machining. Plus, I can repair the machines myself and I don't have to pay a tech 100's of dollars to come and do a repair. And, if 1 machine WAS down, I would still have all the others to use.

I've been vacillating about one of the Torus Pro's too. Their Z height has me a bit scared tho. My 770 has 14" of Z height, and I still run out of room, and the 1100 has almost 18". The Torus pro only has like 12.25" or something like that.

Wade

[jid2]

Everyone has different needs. If you are building and selling product as fast as the machine can run them a faster machine is surely worth it. Without starting a massive argument I'll say that you don't know the difference until you experience it running on both. If you do simple 2D brackets with low cosmetic standards it's less important. If you run parts that often have machining on 3 or more sides you should be using a 4th axis.

For example, my main product I've been working on is 4 parts, that require 14 setups in traditional vises. On a machine with a 4th axis and a double station vise I can get all of that into a single setup and have 4 complete parts finished at the end of each cycle. Splitting those parts out to a few machines with traditional vise setups would never be faster than running on the single machine with the optimized setup. But it requires a true commercial grade 4th axis, and enough table space to hold the 4th and a double vise, and a machine with a 20 tool magazine.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I agree, my machine does light production. I have the 770 and love it. I really wish I had a more recent version of Mach3 tho. I just had to resetup my whole controller last night because it locked out the keyboard from being able to jog the machine after I interrupted a tool touch-off routine.

As far as a tool setter, check out cncneeds.com. Their toolsetter is wonderful and the will soon have active and passive mode setters available. And it's less than 1/2 the cost of Tormach's.

I still say to this day that if I had 150k to spend, I'd buy a bunch of smaller machines instead of 1 big haas. Even if I couldn't go as fast with the smaller machines, I'd certainly be able to make a lot more parts. I call the concept cell machining. Plus, I can repair the machines myself and I don't have to pay a tech 100's of dollars to come and do a repair. And, if 1 machine WAS down, I would still have all the others to use.

I've been vacillating about one of the Torus Pro's too. Their Z height has me a bit scared tho. My 770 has 14" of Z height, and I still run out of room, and the 1100 has almost 18". The Torus pro only has like 12.25" or something like that.

Wade

Wade,

You're not reading the Torus Pro specs properly. It has 12" of Z TRAVEL, which ends about 5" ABOVE the table. Total Z clearance is about 17", about the same as my 9x49 knee mill.. The 5" minimum distance is only a problem when using very short tools, and the work is mounted directly on the table. For those cases, I use a set of 2" riser blocks, and this has never been an issue. When using a vise, there's never a problem.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Everyone has different needs. If you are building and selling product as fast as the machine can run them a faster machine is surely worth it. Without starting a massive argument I'll say that you don't know the difference until you experience it running on both. If you do simple 2D brackets with low cosmetic standards it's less important. If you run parts that often have machining on 3 or more sides you should be using a 4th axis.

For example, my main product I've been working on is 4 parts, that require 14 setups in traditional vises. On a machine with a 4th axis and a double station vise I can get all of that into a single setup and have 4 complete parts finished at the end of each cycle. Splitting those parts out to a few machines with traditional vise setups would never be faster than running on the single machine with the optimized setup. But it requires a true commercial grade 4th axis, and enough table space to hold the 4th and a double vise, and a machine with a 20 tool magazine.

14 setups is VERY FAR from typical - like 6 sigma. In fact, I have to wonder if you aren't over-complicating things, as I can imagine extremely few parts that truly require that many setups if done efficiently. I have very few parts that need more than two setups, and more machines would increase my productivity more than a single faster machine, IF I needed to increase my productivity, which I don't.

Regards,
Ray L.

[wwendorf]

Yep, just found that out talking with Khai. However, I was reading the specs, and it said travel, but not what the height above the table would be. I suggested they clarify that, a LOT, because I've seen a lot of conversation on that topic lately, and there is clearly a lot of misunderstanding on it.

Wade

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Yep, just found that out talking with Khai. However, I was reading the specs, and it said travel, but not what the height above the table would be. I suggested they clarify that, a LOT, because I've seen a lot of conversation on that topic lately, and there is clearly a lot of misunderstanding on it.

Wade

Wade,

It's right there in the specs on the website:

Spindle to Table 5.27” – 16.75“

Regards,
Ray L.

[wwendorf]

Ray, I already admitted I was wrong. I will, once again, say, YEP, and admit I was WRONG. And yes, it's on their specs, UNDER MOTOR!! I was interested in the TABLE information, where it is NOT listed. I suggested they CLARIFY it, NOT ADD IT.

I'm not trying to get into a p*****g match with you here, but this is a perfect example of why so many people get upset with you on this board. You beat something to death and can't seem to stop yourself from trying to make other people look bad.

Wade

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Ray, I already admitted I was wrong. I will, once again, say, YEP, and admit I was WRONG. And yes, it's on their specs, UNDER MOTOR!! I was interested in the TABLE information, where it is NOT listed. I suggested they CLARIFY it, NOT ADD IT.

I'm not trying to get into a p*****g match with you here, but this is a perfect example of why so many people get upset with you on this board. You beat something to death and can't seem to stop yourself from trying to make other people look bad.

Wade

Wade,

Read your OWN words. and try to interpret them form the stand-point of another person who cannot read your mind, and figure out what you MEANT to say, as opposed to what you actually DID say:

"I was reading the specs, and it said travel, but not what the height above the table would be. I suggested they clarify that, a LOT"

You said the height above the table was not given in the specs, but, as I pointed out, it clearly WAS given, just not where YOU seem to feel it should be. My response was perfectly reasonable, based on any reasonable interpretation of what YOU wrote. Not my fault that what you wrote was not clear.

I hesitated to point you in the right direction, and now I wish I had not bothered. There's just no helping some people....

Regards,
Ray L.

[rlockwood]

And don't forget that when a Novakon breaks down, it's usually quick, easy, and inexpensive to repair. When a Haas or Brother breaks down, it will likely be a very different story, as you'll be paying a technician, including travel time, to come fix it, and buying proprietary parts. And beware of used commercial machines - they're often being sold for good reason....

Faster isn't always better. Some of us don't NEED higher capacity. I can handle my production needs just fine with my Torus Pro, and still have all the business I want. Once the ATC is done, it will be even better, as I won't have to sit there and wait for toolchanges. Having a Haas would gain me nothing, other than a large debt, and bragging rights. I could make better use of two Torus Pros, because I'm not making 1000 of each part, and the machine sits idle a good percentage of the time anyway.

Regards,
Ray L.

The number one reason relatively new commercial machines get sold is the company that bought them going bankrupt.. Start getting into older stuff, and they've outlived their service life.

Quite frankly, they're built with the same components as larger machines. if you're capable of fixing a novakon or tormach, there really isnt any reason to hire in a technician, short of perhaps a spindle rebuild. Parts are more expensive, yes.. but they are also absolutely more reliable. Know how many time's our Mori's have spent a day doing anything but making parts? Zero. In 7 years.

You have no idea what a Haas would gain you. Its unfathomable. Much like how a year ago you had no need for 3D CAD\CAM.

(JID, I just suggested those Imco's to Brad the other day!)

[tmarks11]

For example, my main product I've been working on is 4 parts, that require 14 setups in traditional vises. On a machine with a 4th axis and a double station vise I can get all of that into a single setup and have 4 complete parts finished at the end of each cycle.

So what you are saying is that now it takes 4 different setups to create each part. And each assembly is made up of 4 parts (each different). Since you can put all the parts on the table at the same time, you maximize cycle time between human interaction, and only have to change the overall setup 4 times.

Mind showing us a picture of the finished part and/or describing you setups (maybe in a different thread to keep the OP topic intact)? Setting up for maximizing production is always something worth learning, and other's examples can be helpful.

I have found designers/engineers without manufacturing skills sometimes draft up parts that are impossible to machine in a reasonable amount of time, and/or specific over-complicated solutions when a slight simpler design or setup can make the process go much faster.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I would like to see those parts aswell.

One other reason for VMC is I would like to do some 3D work in a reasonable amount of time.

Currently I have 2 VMC's in mind, used. I'll know more Monday, I put in offers. I'm looking for a deal, by the time I get a Torus Pro here and setup, the Time and Money factor will be the same as getting a used VMC that is ready to go as soon as I get it. Time is money after all. In the long run a VMC will be better only if I can find a deal on a clean machine - I won't buy anything with a CRT, or that looks abused (missing paint, buttons rubbed off, etc)

[jid2]

^^^ That sounds good.

To be more clear on my stuff: product has 4 machined parts, each part requires 3 to 5 setups, for a total of 15 setups across the complete product. I can't post pictures of the parts yet, but they are hand sized, very detailed with features and tapped holes on a bunch of different surfaces.

Here are some photos of the fixturing with a set of 1st ops tested on my machine.



Mounted on the Brother.



Running on the Brother, start past the first min in the video, this was testing stuff out so the rapids are turned down most of the time. All 4 parts are done at the end of the cycle once you run the parts on the 4th and transfer them to the vise.

[BAMCNC.COM]

VERY nice setup!