How tough are Tormachs, namely the 1100?

[Djstorm100]

By inserting the wrong 1/4 bit. I'm getting a grease pencil tomorrow to right down the tool number on these.


My question is how tough are these machines? Had a 1/4 3 flute Lakeshore carbide end mill, came down and hit the vise and snap. Luckly I hit the space barbefore the spindle hit the vise but the endmill is toast.

Vise didn't move as I checked it with 0.0005 indicator before vacuuming the chips up. But in order to check tram I'll need to remove the vise. I'll do that tomorrow and sweep the indicator on the table using 1-2-3 blocks.

How is the tramming adjustable. I have .020 of shims under the front left base to level the table out through its' travel. Only thing I can think of is shims. I do know the head (traming in x) can tilt about .001-3 tho if you loosen the 6 allen bolt. This is per Tormach.

I figure the machine is ok, but in the back of my head that little voice is saying it's worst than I image. Carbide is brittle so going down on the jaw shouldn't have done anything to the machine it self.

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[mountaindew]

My most recent experience I rammed a 0.5 dewalt b.o. drill bit thru 2" thick alum at full rapid speed. The head stopped moving when the chuck hit the material. Estop, reset, backed it out, then referenced machine. Fixed the fat finger entry in tool table that caused the problem and then went on with the day . Thinking how lucky I was to not drill a custom feature in my vise or table. As for a flimsy small end mill they would break from side forces long before machine damage.

[joshetect]

I use a paint pen, i've found that seems to last the longest, other things wear off too fast. At some point ill engrave them since i'm finding that most of the cutters live in their holders.

Also, even if i've measured a tool previously. What I do on the first OP is to measure each tool before I put it in the machine for each tool change. Then when I hit cycle start, I just verify that the heights are correct when it comes up in pathpilot. That has saved my vise a few times!

[MichaelHenry]

I managed to plunge a 1/2" carbide end mill about 1/4" deep into a vise jaw before E-stopping the machine. No damage done, other than the flat-bottomed hole in the jaw and I think that even the tool offset was unchanged. There's a bit more mass to a 1/2-in end mill than a 1/4" end mill, though.

[Djstorm100]

I went through the machine last night and everything is fine to a extent


I'm having a debate with my self on shimming the base to tram in the table. It would make sense that by doing this I'm flexing the frame the saddle rides on and in doing so could be making certain areas "tight" in Y travel due to this flex. My concern is the long term effects and wear, possibly accelerated wear? With the shims I place under the front left pad to level the table I'm 0.0055 out over a 9-10" span. After adding shims (total of .039) I'm less than a 0.001 over 9". Y is 0.00125 out using 1-2-3 blocks. I'm not entirely sure which foot to go to bring Y in. I much would rather have the number reverse for Y and X.

[mountaindew]

I managed to plunge a 1/2" carbide end mill about 1/4" deep into a vise jaw before E-stopping the machine. No damage done, other than the flat-bottomed hole in the jaw and I think that even the tool offset was unchanged. There's a bit more mass to a 1/2-in end mill than a 1/4" end mill, though.

I should have mentioned the machine referenced back to where it was before. and I just sharpened the drill bit and popped the 2" welded alum spiral off the 2 flutes.
The previous hard hit I had was identical to above. Rammed a 1/2" carbide end mill about 1/2" into hard vise jaw.. I seen red metal fly when I was hitting estop. That was my very first tool crash and it happened with 1st program run on path pilot program "found an error in the software " Those are the only 2 what I consider hard tool crashes and I rarely ever have a problem. The drill bit was a mistake of entering the length into the wrong line in the tool table. Also super rare because my tool table is almost static and only changes when I replace a wore tool.


The tram or level of the head to x,y axis is also important but imho not easy at all to address. Hooks law and a number of other factors like exactly how to measure this correctly make it difficult to tune. I used both machinist level and test indicators and zeroed in on what I consider a compromise in all directions for now, lol. Lots of videos out on this subject .

[Djstorm100]

I’ve seen a hand full of videos on tramming including John’s. It’s just a lot of people have different views. Such as shimming the column or the head vs shimming the base.


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[Zetopan]

I’ve seen a hand full of videos on tramming including John’s. It’s just a lot of people have different views. Such as shimming the column or the head vs shimming the base.

The first thing to do before trying to shim anything is to loosen up the base mounting bolts and place a support under the front center so that the mill base is symmetrically supported on only 3 points. That is how the alignment was checked in the factory and it should always be your starting point for determining what actually needs fixing. If you simply start shimming before accurately determining the unstressed alignment you will only introduce more problems as you try to fix things by twisting the base to fix one problem and while inadvertently causing another different alignment problem..

[Djstorm100]

The first thing to do before trying to shim anything is to loosen up the base mounting bolts and place a support under the front center so that the mill base is symmetrically supported on only 3 points. That is how the alignment was checked in the factory and it should always be your starting point for determining what actually needs fixing. If you simply start shimming before accurately determining the unstressed alignment you will only introduce more problems as you try to fix things by twisting the base to fix one problem and while inadvertently causing another different alignment problem..

I did this and repeated the test with all 4 mounting pads on the base. The measurements surprisingly didn't change. This was done with the bolts just threads in the holes, not tigthen down.

[IMT]

I went through the machine last night and everything is fine to a extent


I'm having a debate with my self on shimming the base to tram in the table. It would make sense that by doing this I'm flexing the frame the saddle rides on and in doing so could be making certain areas "tight" in Y travel due to this flex. My concern is the long term effects and wear, possibly accelerated wear? With the shims I place under the front left pad to level the table I'm 0.0055 out over a 9-10" span. After adding shims (total of .039) I'm less than a 0.001 over 9". Y is 0.00125 out using 1-2-3 blocks. I'm not entirely sure which foot to go to bring Y in. I much would rather have the number reverse for Y and X.

Don't shim the base to adjust Tram!!! When I first got my machine (2011) the tram was out .005+ over 8 inches. I saw a Youtube video showing how to shim the base, so I followed and ended up shimming the left front foot. It was better but I still couldn't get rid of the step between passes when fly cutting. Years later I was drilling a deep hole, .625dia x 4.5 deep. As it went deeper the load increased significantly (sound too). After drilling I found the hole to be .625-.626 at the bottom but .631-.632 at the top (measured with pin gages). This seemed to suggest that my spindle axis was not parallel to the z-axis even though it was perpendicular to the table (tram). So I bought a precision granite square (10" x 6" x 1" Precision Granite Square) and went about mapping my machine (not going into the details of the process right now). I found that there was a significant twist in the Y-axis, when I removed the shims from the left front foot the twist went away, not perfect but pretty good. I was able to determine that the XY moved in a plane, with a little deviation, and the z-axis was perpendicular to both the X and Y within .0015 over 10". After that the Tram was out more than .005 in X and around .003 in Y. To correct the Y I shimmed the bolts holding the head to the Z carriage and to correct the X I removed one of taper pins, allowing it to rotate around the other pin. Now I can fly cut and have no (almost) noticeable step between passes.

This part is done with the superfly you can see the multiple passes but when I run a finger nail over it cannot feel a step.

[popspipes]

Don't shim the base to adjust Tram!!! When I first got my machine (2011) the tram was out .005+ over 8 inches. I saw a Youtube video showing how to shim the base, so I followed and ended up shimming the left front foot. It was better but I still couldn't get rid of the step between passes when fly cutting. Years later I was drilling a deep hole, .625dia x 4.5 deep. As it went deeper the load increased significantly (sound too). After drilling I found the hole to be .625-.626 at the bottom but .631-.632 at the top (measured with pin gages). This seemed to suggest that my spindle axis was not parallel to the z-axis even though it was perpendicular to the table (tram). So I bought a precision granite square (10" x 6" x 1" Precision Granite Square) and went about mapping my machine (not going into the details of the process right now). I found that there was a significant twist in the Y-axis, when I removed the shims from the left front foot the twist went away, not perfect but pretty good. I was able to determine that the XY moved in a plane, with a little deviation, and the z-axis was perpendicular to both the X and Y within .0015 over 10". After that the Tram was out more than .005 in X and around .003 in Y. To correct the Y I shimmed the bolts holding the head to the Z carriage and to correct the X I removed one of taper pins, allowing it to rotate around the other pin. Now I can fly cut and have no (almost) noticeable step between passes.

This part is done with the superfly you can see the multiple passes but when I run a finger nail over it cannot feel a step.

Thats exactly how I fixed mine, The Head had to be shimmed under the bottom 2 bolts where it mounts to the columb to get rid of the nod, this gets worse as the Z jib gets loose, the X I pulled the left dowel pin slightly and loosened the head bolts slightly, then about a half day with a deadblow hammer I got it to where the crosshatch pattern with a 2" face mill was almost the same in both directions.

[IMT]

I found I couldn't hit it hard enough with a dead blow to make it move. Ended up using a wood block and lowering the head casting until one side rested on it, then jog down a little to make the head rotate.

[Djstorm100]

How do you map out the machine IMT?

I’m going to shim thebhead to fix the nod/y and shim the base for x. It doesn’t need much. As well as loosen all the bolts and see what the machine does.


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[popspipes]

I found I couldn't hit it hard enough with a dead blow to make it move. Ended up using a wood block and lowering the head casting until one side rested on it, then jog down a little to make the head rotate.

I may have used an oak block as well, I use that and a 2' hammer for stubborn stuff.......I wound up putting the dowel back in and just loosening it slightly, then a good rap didnt throw it off too much in the other direction, took me a fair amount of time to get it done. My machine is a Feburary 1 2012 version.

[IMT]

How do you map out the machine IMT?

I’m going to shim thebhead to fix the nod/y and shim the base for x. It doesn’t need much. As well as loosen all the bolts and see what the machine does.


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*Get a precision square, preferably granite and calibrated.
* Stand it up in the center of the table with the horizontal leg along the x-axis and move the y-axis to max Y+. With an indicator in the spindle, sweep vertically from the bottom to the top. Record the error. Move the y-axis to the center of travel, re-position the indicator and repeat the measurement. Repeat again at max Y-. The change in XZ error gives you a picture of any twist in the base frame (don't worry about the absolute value yet). With the values from 3 locations in the Y travel you can see which way it is twisted and which foot could be shimmed to correct it. Add/Remove shims and repeat the process.
* Repeat the process in the YZ plane. There really isn't a simple way to adjust it in YZ but correcting the base twist may have some effect on it. More of just an FYI.
* Once this is done the X and Y motions are in the same plane, at least as good as the accuracy of the ways allows.
* Now look at the absolute values in XZ and YZ. If this isn't close to 0 then the column needs to be shimmed. Mine was about .0015 over 10" in both XZ and YZ so I didn't shim the column.
* Once this is complete you have established that the XY motion moves in a plane and the Z motion is perpendicular to that plane. Now you can check Tram.
* If it is out then shim the head to correct Y Tram error and rotate the head to correct X Tram error.

[Scot808]

Thanks for posting your procedure. I’ll have to give this a try soon.