Tormach 1100 vs. Haas VF3

[kstrauss]

It will take you longer than that to dial in the angle of the cross slide (I am thinking manual lathe) and at least 3-5 minutes per part to set up each offset on the 4 jaw until you get really good... then it will only take 4 or 5 times longer to do on the lathe than on the mill.

Not wishing to be too picky but cutting tapered threads on a short spigot requires a taper attachment rather than setting the cross slide at an angle. I don't think that offsetting the tailstock will be practical for the piece being discussed.

[WOTDesigns]

Not wishing to be too picky but cutting tapered threads on a short spigot requires a taper attachment rather than setting the cross slide at an angle. I don't think that offsetting the tailstock will be practical for the piece being discussed.

Woops. LOL Need to air that brain fart out it's starting to stink the place up

[SCzEngrgGroup]

And using a simple tap, with a simple, inexpensive hand-tapping fixture, will be faster, cheaper, and at least as good as using a mill or lathe - probably 15-20 seconds per hole.

Regards,
Ray L.

[akmetal]

Thank you for the great advice, the reason I am worried about loosing steps is because I was trying to mill things on the xcarve and lost tons of steps and the entire machine and projects I was trying to do because a failure, luckily I was using scrap material from a metal shop that he sold me for pennies becuase it was remnants that were going to be thrown away. But if I spend clost to 10 grand or more on a machine I dont want to EVER miss a step, even if my gcode is not perfect (which I am letting fusion 360 generate for me, since I am not yet savy enough to program my own gcode yet).

I am looking at the pulsar as another poster suggested but the only thing I worry about with that machine is it does not have the same following or community support like the tormach has ... or does it? If I loose a step and a metal disk gets jacked up I might just loose my sh*t lol, even if my code is not flawless I dont want to loose steps.

That pin on the bottom left is for power supply so the tolerances dont have to be tight at all, some of the other parts I have will have to have much greater tolerances as they are optical components.

Pic is worth a thousand words! You can go ahead and get the "doing it on the lathe" idea off your front burner. Those are off center which means you need a 4 jaw chuck and have to position the part off center for the lathe to cut the threads. That takes skill and a lot of time. As in 5,000% more time than just thread milling them on the mill. On the mill it grabs the tool and makes them. Take a few passes total time to make taper/non-taper threads that size less than 2 minutes. It will take you longer than that to dial in the angle of the cross slide (I am thinking manual lathe) and at least 3-5 minutes per part to set up each offset on the 4 jaw until you get really good... then it will only take 4 or 5 times longer to do on the lathe than on the mill.

What is that pin on the lower left? Is that a locating pin? pressing into a bored pocket on something? Lets say you needed that pin to be +/- 0.002" which is TIGHT. You just program so that you leave .005 material when the part is done. Then create another program that just takes a finish pass on that feature. Measure the feature and it is actually only over by 0.003 (.002 error) you adjust your tool offset -.002 and run the follow up program. Part will be within 0.002 (likely better). It's easy to do on short run parts. Long run (100 parts at a time) it gets annoying.

For cutting a part that size out of AL you gain nothing having AC Servo over steppers. Servos accel and decel FAST and you can push them to the limit without losing a step. Program that part intelligently and you will never lose a step and it wont matter. If I still had an 1100 sitting next to my haas I wouldn't bother pulling a fixture off to make that on the Haas I would run it on the 1100.

You will need to schedule monthly maintenance time to adjust your backlash, gibs, and maintenance, but

[WOTDesigns]

We were all where you are at one point. For me I built my first machine from an X3 mill which is 20x more ridged as your vcarve. The Tormach is easily 5-10 times more ridged than the X3. You are completely wasting your time worrying about losing steps. Completely. 100%. If the V carve was an easy bake oven and you were using it in a manor other than intended (on metal) then the Tormach is a household oven. Your stressing over digital vs analog dials. It doesn't matter. Out of all the Tormach users do you hear any of them batching about parts ruined due to lost steps? I never saw one of my steps lost. It's basically only if u CRASH and are too flustered to reset and check your offset or trying to bury a 2" end mill that you could ever lose steps. You will HEAR them because you just crashed into the part which is what caused them to be 'lost'.

Ignore the steps. You abuse any machine you will have issues. Watch a few videos of tormach hogging metal. Anyone commenting "OMG I saw a lost step!" no. Steps don't 'get lost' the machine just doesn't know you crashed. Literally just check your zero after crash and it makes little difference.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[cordvision]

@akmetal I feel you have a completely wrong idea about cnc milling. You will crash and scrap lots of parts no matter what machine u buy. If your g-code is faulty the same might happen. You sound like you expect that the machine will just make the parts exactly like you design them in solidworks but there's a lot more to it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kstrauss]

WOT is right. If you overload a stepper based machine (drive the cutter into a vise jaw, try a 2-inch DoC or whatever other stupid thing we all do) you will hear the machine straining and you'll probably "lose steps". On a servo machine you will have the same problem; the only difference is a fault light may come one. Regardless, both machines will have ruined your part. If you're unsure about "lost steps" then recheck your zeros after you've crashed and replaced the ruined cutter.

If your stock and cutters are too valuable to make a mistake you're in the wrong trade/hobby. Expect to make each new part twice and rejoice if you get everything perfect the first try. On any machine!

[tmarks11]

...I am worried about loosing steps is because I was trying to mill things on the xcarve and lost tons of steps and the entire machine and projects I was trying to do because a failure,...

No worries about that with Tormach, as Brian and Ken said. No comparison between X-Carve and Tormach. X-carve is meant for low-precision engraving in soft materials. Tormach is meant for hogging (relatively speaking**) through solid steel.

I am looking at the pulsar as another poster suggested but the only thing I worry about with that machine is it does not have the same following or community support like the tormach has ... or does it?

They have a very active user forum too:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/novakon-systems/

The reason to go for servo instead of steppers is speed; the servo machines will rapid at 4-10x the speed of Tormach. Which can be important if you are running 24/7 production for weeks at a time cutting larger pieces. Does that describe you? If not, no reason to shell out an extra $3000, spend the money on tooling instead (easy to do).

** relative to x-carve. Not relative to a commercial VMC.

[Steve Seebold]

So I was just reading an article - We've all been seeing ads for Tormach Machines, here in PM. - Page 2

They are talking about VMC machines (which it sounds like are the house down payment type machines), but they were stating that machines like tormach wont get the acuracy that a VMC will get. I am looking at doing small scale engineering/science R&D prototyping so I wont be one of these guys trying to run the machine to death (and I picture some nut job screaming and yelling in a shop to get parts out the door because his buisness plan is crap), but I digress.

However I do need the parts to be acurate and repetable even if it takes longer, they have to be right, It is a MAJOR hassle to get raw materials to my location so if I have to scrap something its not cheap. The machine just has to do EXACTLY what is in the solid works/fusion model and the bit cant girate or skip steps and loose its zero point etc. I have to be able to hold the part up to the solid works model and it has to be the same.

As a super newbie its hard to tell if these guys in the above link are just grouchy machinists who think that a sub 10k machine should be doing production work or if machines like the tormach really do go haywire and chew up expensive stock for no reason.

I will be making scientific apparatus so I wont need it fast or even be using the machine every day (since most of the time spent designing and building the part out in solid works or on paper) but when I do run it it better be spot on and mate up with the rest of the design like a glove.

I cant afford a VMC so if that is the true answer then I will have to endevor to build one and it sounds like there are guys that do it (as eluded to in the attached discussion) so its not impossible. I am not sure if these guys are litterally doing their own copper coil windings for the spindle or how far they are taking the builds ...

Are there classes or VERY comprehensive text books on this stuff. For the price of a house down payment I can spend alot of sleepless nights figuring stuff out, I did it for my engineering degree, PE and other endevors lol.

If a VMC is not really necessary for prototype work then that is great news ... it is just hard to desipher crochety intellectual dishonesty from lagitimate machine short commings since i am so new at this but it has become necessary to learn CNC machining if I am to build any scientific apparatus of any significance.

Also if I am spending almost 10 grand I dont want to do my own tool changes becasue you invariably almost alway loose your zero point and something goes arwy when you start the machine again with the new tool.

My PCNC 1100 is 5 1/2 years old, and I can do +/-.001 work on it ALL DAY LONG and I have never used the tool table in Mach III. I do all my tool length offsets from the offset page of Mach III and I have run jobs with as many as 9 tools.

Yes, it takes longer to do stuff on my Tormach than it does on a good VMC, BUT, my Tormach didn't cost anywhere close to $75,000.00.

I'm getting ready to start a 40 piece job that someone with a VMC would kill me on, but I work in my garage "AT HOME" and I'm having fun doing it.

I'm 72 years old now, so I no longer do machine work to make a lot of money, (been there, done that) I do it for something to do in my retirement.

I watched my dad just sit and waste away after he retired and I promised myself and my wife that I wouldn't do that.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Thank you for the great advice, the reason I am worried about loosing steps is because I was trying to mill things on the xcarve and lost tons of steps and the entire machine and projects I was trying to do because a failure, luckily I was using scrap material from a metal shop that he sold me for pennies becuase it was remnants that were going to be thrown away. But if I spend clost to 10 grand or more on a machine I dont want to EVER miss a step, even if my gcode is not perfect (which I am letting fusion 360 generate for me, since I am not yet savy enough to program my own gcode yet).

You have fallen for what is undoubtedly the Number 1 MOST common bit of MISINFORMATION that CNC amateurs fall for: The belief that stepper motors are somehow inherently unreliable, and will always randomly lose steps. THIS IS A FLAT_OUT WRONG! Literally millions of stepper-based machines are used in very high precision, very high reliability applications every single day all around the world. The ONLY way a stepper system will EVER lose steps is if it is either poorly designed (which is nearly always the case for home-built CNC machines), or it is operated beyond its capabilities. Under either of those conditions, a servo-based machine will also fail. A properly designed, properly operated stepper system will NEVER lose steps. That is a cold, hard FACT. There will be ZERO difference in accuracy, repeatability or precision between a properly design stepper-driven machine and a corresponding DC servo or AC servo driven machine. ZERO! The servo driven machines will almost certainly provide faster feed rates, and they will be quieter, but that is about it.

Regards,
Ray L.

[akmetal]

Thank you guys again for the great information, part of it is if I can get a higher end part like a AC brushless motor for a machine I will likely only buy once why not have the better part ...
Would you say the pulsar is just as good if not better than the tormach?

1100 Personal CNC Mill | Tormach Has Affordable CNC Milling Machines
Pulsar (NOVAKON) – Novakon

Looks like they are about the same price, are there draw backs to the pulsar?

You have fallen for what is undoubtedly the Number 1 MOST common bit of MISINFORMATION that CNC amateurs fall for: The belief that stepper motors are somehow inherently unreliable, and will always randomly lose steps. THIS IS A FLAT_OUT WRONG! Literally millions of stepper-based machines are used in very high precision, very high reliability applications every single day all around the world. The ONLY way a stepper system will EVER lose steps is if it is either poorly designed (which is nearly always the case for home-built CNC machines), or it is operated beyond its capabilities. Under either of those conditions, a servo-based machine will also fail. A properly designed, properly operated stepper system will NEVER lose steps. That is a cold, hard FACT. There will be ZERO difference in accuracy, repeatability or precision between a properly design stepper-driven machine and a corresponding DC servo or AC servo driven machine. ZERO! The servo driven machines will almost certainly provide faster feed rates, and they will be quieter, but that is about it.

Regards,
Ray L.

[tmarks11]

Would you say the pulsar is just as good if not better than the tormach?

This is like coming into a Ford forum and asking what everyone thinks of Chevrolet.

[WOTDesigns]

Thank you guys again for the great information, part of it is if I can get a higher end part like a AC brushless motor for a machine I will likely only buy once why not have the better part ...
Would you say the pulsar is just as good if not better than the tormach?

1100 Personal CNC Mill | Tormach Has Affordable CNC Milling Machines
Pulsar (NOVAKON) – Novakon

Looks like they are about the same price, are there draw backs to the pulsar?

Looks like the same list of coming soon options I saw two years ago when I decided not to wait for the community to manufacture parts for the machine to be comparable.

Automatic Tool Changer (ATC)- Torus PRO – Novakon (NOTE THE DATE)

And I looked HARD at adding their big boy next to my Tormach in the garage, but ended up deciding to fork the money for a Haas and a shop. Lot more overhead, but a LOT more parts get made without me standing there babysitting. 2 years with zero Gib adjustments :-p

[tmarks11]

Automatic Tool Changer (ATC)- Torus PRO – Novakon (NOTE THE DATE)

Actually Ray has them in production now.

[akmetal]

I know but my hope is that everyone can be objective ...

This is like coming into a Ford forum and asking what everyone thinks of Chevrolet.

[akmetal]

So the tormach comes with a tool changer and the pulsar you have to buy one for an extra $4200 ... ouch.

Looks like the same list of coming soon options I saw two years ago when I decided not to wait for the community to manufacture parts for the machine to be comparable.

Automatic Tool Changer (ATC)- Torus PRO – Novakon (NOTE THE DATE)

And I looked HARD at adding their big boy next to my Tormach in the garage, but ended up deciding to fork the money for a Haas and a shop. Lot more overhead, but a LOT more parts get made without me standing there babysitting. 2 years with zero Gib adjustments :-p

[WOTDesigns]

If that had been ready two years ago, I would probably still be in my garage. Pluses and minuses to having a nice big shop and 3 phase, but $3,500 a month for the last two years adds up... to $84K. Not sure I made an extra $84K by having the shop vs my garage LOL.

At $20K though with ToolChanger and servos on a pulsar it's just too close to a 2005 Mini Mill

[WOTDesigns]

So the tormach comes with a tool changer and the pulsar you have to buy one for an extra $4200 ... ouch.

No. Have to add power draw bar, and ATC to both

Everything is picked Ala carte you have to build a full quote to see what it costs (actually able to even turn on) suited similar or the way you need it. For example the 770 looks so cheap I can pull enough cash out of a single arm to buy it... Then add a computer so it can operate... Jog handle, monitor, cables, power draw bar, low pressure switch, ATC, stand, etc etc etc. It ain't quite as cheap anymore.

I sold my tormach after 2 years for over 75% of what I paid. Basically rented it for $200 a month. Not too shabby considering it made roughly 15,000-25,000 parts.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[akmetal]

What is ATC?

I was looking at the mini VMC's and they are quite significantly more expensive than the tormach or pular, are you saying the few add ons add tens of thousands?

No. Have to add power draw bar, and ATC to both

Everything is picked Ala carte you have to build a full quote to see what it costs (actually able to even turn on) suited similar or the way you need it. For example the 770 looks so cheap I can pull enough cash out of a single arm to buy it... Then add a computer so it can operate... Jog handle, monitor, cables, power draw bar, low pressure switch, ATC, stand, etc etc etc. It ain't quite as cheap anymore.

I sold my tormach after 2 years for over 75% of what I paid. Basically rented it for $200 a month. Not too shabby considering it made roughly 15,000-25,000 parts.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[WOTDesigns]

Automatic tool changer. And yes.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk