Originally Posted by
rx8pilot
I have been trying to order and pay......but nothing.
It is way beyond an inquiry, I have chosen all the options and clearly stated that I am ready to go - a few times......nothing yet to solidify anything. I am not out any money yet, but still trying to make business plans that are somewhat time sensitive. As long as I do not have a machine - I am losing money and time. I can prototype a new part in 1/25 of the time it takes for a local shop to do it. When I machine my own parts - I can do 5 iterations of the design and test it in a single day. A local shop needs drawings, time to program, time to fit it in to their schedule, etc. After that, I am not their to notice the various design flaws that could be fixed in 5 minutes, but only if I was there to see it. By the time I actually get the parts to notice the problems - 2 weeks may have passed and it may be another 1 or two before they can run a revision of it. Long story made short - prototyping needs to be in my hands - in-house and it is very expensive as long as I have nothing. We will still do production out of house if we have the SkyFire since I doubt it will hold up very well being run 12 hours per day. A new Haas (even the baby Haas TM series) can be run all day every day and accomplish a significant amount of our production work too - making it easier to justify.
I just got a quote from Haas for a brand new TM2-P - 10k spindle, Renishaw probes, CAT40, 7.5hp, 4th axis, chip auger, high flow coolant, etc,etc every option.....for just about $55k and it will actually fit in my space. Roughly 3x the cost, but higher performance, capability, and a guarantee. It may be worth making payments to have a machine months sooner and peace of mind that my business is not relying on a small hack business.