How hard was the transition from big VMC to Tormach and Mach3?

[Jaynboom]

For those folks that have worked on the VMCs in a production-shop, how hard was the transition to the Tormach with Mach3? I used VMCs by Bridgeport, Haas and Matsuura, and I'm curious what the learning curve will be. I'm programming with MasterCAM-9.

Any tips?

I ordered my 770 Friday.

Thanks

Roy

[beanbag]

I think the transition won't be hard, but you'll mostly be disappointed in what the Tormach can't do compared to your VMC. You will spend most of your time learning about Mach 3 instead of the Tormach anyway.

[TXFred]

I went from a job where the best machine was a Haas VF-2, to the Tormach.

This was at Texas department of transportation. We had to fight for six months to get money to fix a simple hydraulic leak on a lathe. Because it was so hard to get the bean counters to pay to fix a machine, we were very worried about breaking or wearing out the machines. So we babied them, running shallow cut depths and low machining loads.

As such, the transition to the Tormach wasn't that big a deal for me. If you're used to running half inch carbide at full depth in steel, you're going to have to change some habits.

The best way to make the Tormach act like a VMC is to get the Tormach carbide insert tooling. Grab the 1.5" face mill, and one of the end mills. I just got the 16mm end mill, and it has done wonders for roughing work.

The biggest limitation of the Tormach is tool pullout while using TTS. The carbide tools minimize this since they don't generate a lot of down force while cutting.

Frederic

[Jaynboom]

I think the transition won't be hard, but you'll mostly be disappointed in what the Tormach can't do compared to your VMC.

Well, that sounds promising.

[beanbag]

Well, that sounds promising.

Just think of all the money you saved over buying a real VMC.

[cuauhtemoc]

I use to work in a shop where you can put 3 Tormach 770's (with the stands) on one CNC table. I think of my 770 as a 'baby' cnc, it can do just about everything a big CNC can do, except smaller and with 'baby' cuts.