HASS vs. Tormach 1100MX

[Dustn_Chips]

I would hate to admit to any followers how much time I've spent on this topic of what to purchase, Tormach 1100MX vs.HAAS, SYIL, AutoMate, StarFire, Bolton vs. Matthews precision ets. etc My decision to eliminate all but 2 machines boils down to the new Tormach 1100MX versus a HASS Mini mill. My estimations are that Tormachs' free shipping is a way to put a BIG zero in MY bottom line cost in the door to making chips expense column. Purchasing a new HAAS Mini mill, depending on where you live, trucking and rigging would be $2.5K -3.5K . Remember you also have to pay for a HAAS tech. to come to your shop to set-up your new mill, which may involve a Hotel stay, Airline ticket and going rate on his/her labor, or your warranty maybe void.Cost $$$??? and I'm still not even close to making chips.Don't forget possible phase converter and remember we need tooling.
My estimate to your first chip is about 45K Since Tormach has not released the new pricing for 2019 my guess is that the HAAS Mini mill would cost you roughly 18K inc.tax more than the Tormach 1100MX to first chip. One thing I'm very sure about is, Tormach is not trying to compete with HAAS, when we do this comparison we have to compare apples to apples, and this is definitely apples to oranges. If I had 45K to spend on a CNC mill, I would never even consider a Tormach they are 2 VERY different machines. If I had a max budget of 27K I would start my research looking at a HAAS, and quickly move on to a Tormach. Tormach has a lot of people a heck of a lot smarter than me,and I'll bet the 1st. question they asked the developing department was, "Are we trying to compete with HAAS or are we trying to make the best product at our price point" with the answer to that question they sharpened their pencils and went to work developing the 1100MX. which I think is going to be the best CNC Mill in it's class hands down.

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[Kenny Duval]

Aside from the larger footprint and additional capabilities of the Haas it would be happier doing its intended purposes which is to crank out parts all day everyday. That would not be my use case and would likely see failures happens from stagnation. The Tormach would be the perfect home gamer machine if they just went the one step further and put linear rails on it. That's the only real complaint I have about my home brew Chinese conversion is the occasional table stall on the X axis. It does everything else I need it to do as well as I need it to do it. A Haas for a hobbyist is just hard to justify.

[sansbury]

Here's the way I see it:

If you're a hobbyist, any of these machines will probably do all or more than you'll ever need it to do. If you have the money and want to buy a Haas, knock yourself out, it's cheaper than a gambling problem and better for you than doing drugs. I'd choose Tormach over all the others because they have a proven track record of supporting the product, and they're the least likely to retire/drop dead/or go under in a recession. Syil is becoming more interesting but I'd still consider Tormach safer.

If you're a business looking to prototype parts, a Tormach might be a very good choice. Prototyping/first-article parts are relatively expensive to contract out, and as a startup your first two goals are to figure out exactly what product the market wants, and how to sell it to them effectively. A Haas or Okuma won't help you do those any better than an 1100, but the 30-50k in cash saved might buy you the time or marketing spend to get over that critical hump. From what I've seen, businesses typically run out of cash before they run out of product.

Given how competitive the contract manufacturing business is, I am generally of the belief that businesses should invest their time in developing a few good suppliers and spend their money on things to grow the business. I think many guys look at the outsourced unit price and don't pay as much attention to cost of capital or their labor to replace that. I suspect that some of the YouTubers everybody watches are turning large amounts of money into small amounts of money very slowly, perhaps slowly enough that even they don't realize that's what they're doing. The ones who are highly-leveraged from all the cheap credit available the past 5-8 years will be in for a shock when the next recession comes and the market's appetite for fancy audio/camera/knives/gun gear (aka "man jewelry") takes a pause. If you bought everything with family money (or similar) you can just dim the lights and drive Uber for a while, but if you can't keep up the loan payments then the end will come at a time not of your choosing.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

If you care about through-put, and accuracy, there is no question a Haas will run circles around ANY hobby machine. They will get most parts done anywhere from 2-5X faster, and with far greater accuracy. I think the cost estimates given here are over-inflated, as I know people (several on this forum, who will, I expect, speak up at some point) who have made EXACTLY the same decision, chose the Haas MiniMill, and were VERY happy they did. Cost was no more than maybe 30% higher than a COMPARABLY EQUIPPED Tormach. If it's for business use, and will be used a lot, the additional cost is easily justified. The incremental cost, if financed, is no more than a few hundred $ per month. You'll get a machine that is FAR faster, FAR more accurate, more reliable, and with a higher resale value. And, you'll get a real, high-performance ATC, FAR better 40-taper spindle, a true name-brand industrial controller with enormous expansion capability.

Regards,
Ray L.

[sansbury]

Ray, I agree that when you add in the ATC, enclosure, etc. that the 1100 gets relatively expensive. The base machine can make anything the loaded one, can, you just spend more time standing next to it. I think you can still get a Tormach to your door for ~15k. That's where I see the best value prop.

The key part in your post is "[if it] will be used a lot." I suspect a lot of would-be startup guys overestimate the time they will spend machining parts and underestimate everything else. A Haas or anything else like it will certainly make you a lot more money if you have a clear and airtight plan to move product. Many (most?) of the folks I see asking these questions are not yet at that stage.

[Steve Seebold]

Being the former owner of a haas and the current owner of a PCNC 1100, if price was no object, I would definitely go with the Haas.

When I had my shop I had a FADAL 3016 a Haas TM-1 with a 10 pocket ATC, rigid tapping and a 5C 4th axis and a heart attack.

When I closed my shop I sold my FADAL and since my Haas wasn’t paid for I sent it back.

Knowing what I know now about the Tormach and the Haas, I would have taken some of the money I got for my FADAL, paid off my Haas and brought it home.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaints about my Tormach, but the Haas was a way better machine for the kind of work I do.

Only problem with the Haas was it only had a 4000 RPM spindle.

It had a CAT 40 spindle taper so a 1 inch end mill was no problem. It also had 7.5 horsepower as opposed to 1.5 on my Tormach.

[AUSTINMACHINING]

I think there's no comparison between a hobby mill vs. A real VMC. Too manny differences in the construction of the machine.

[sin_arms]

If I had a chance to do it again I wouldn't of bought a Tormach and went straight to a real VMC right away.

[coffeetek]

If I had a chance to do it again I wouldn't of bought a Tormach and went straight to a real VMC right away.

+1000

[D.D.Machine]

Haas does not charge for setup .. Every state has a Haas dealer that supports it . Trying to compare Haas to Tormach is like trying to compare mastercam to Microsoft paint ... I am not saying the Tormach is a bad machine but from everything I have seen of them there NOT a industrial machine.. If your trying to make a point that Tormach is cheaper you need to understand your getting less machine for less money is all ... About half my shop is Haas machines and you need to look at is more as "What do I need to make my parts" Haas does a great job at making my parts and making me a living ,,, Haas is not the best machine made but its more than good enough for my use... you need to look at what your use and needs are from a machine and make a choice of machine based on that ...

[R.DesJardin]

Not sure how you can compare them. The price is no where close, we had a quote last year for a Minimill and TM1, both were over 40,000 without a bunch of add-ons just ready to machine. Saying that they are close in price is just silly inexperienced guesses. There is so much more into what you buy when you are just starting up. No way I would have spent money on a Haas when I just started up producing parts, I had no way of knowing how much if any money I would be making. If you can afford a Minimill then why not just step up to a VF2 so you have a real VMC, its not that much more money.

[ScottDW]

Unless I missed it, you never told us what your intentions are for the machine.

[warrenb]

1982 Datsun Versus 2018 Dodge Ram.

[CadRhino]

1982 Datsun Versus 2018 Dodge Ram.

I was thinking more like a motorcycle vs a small pickup

I love my Tormach and it got me going but once you need the speed, accuracy and reliability, you see the value in a more professional machine.

If you are just getting started with prototyping and learning, the Tormach is a great machine to start on to test the waters or keep as a hobby machine.

[Spinnetti]

Unless I missed it, you never told us what your intentions are for the machine.

Yeah, and thus, "this makes no sense"... I liked my 1100, but its no HAAS, OTOH, its just a hobby toy for me, so hard to justify the Haas. If I was running a business, I'd go HAAS tho.

[man_o_brass]

A good friend of mine owns Suppressed Weapon Systems in Houston. All of their rifle barrels are milled on a Tormach 1100. Mind you, his rifles are built-to-order, so we're certainly talking low volume, but it's been adequate for him. His business is expanding to the point that he'll probably need to upgrade to a real production-level machine fairly soon, but the little Tormach got his business off the ground without needing a second mortgage. Haas, on the other hand, will upgrade the 1 Gb of program memory on your Mini Mill to 32 Gb for the low price of $995. A thousand flipping dollars for the equivalent of a formatted SD card. No thanks. I plan on buying a Tormach for my own personal use soon (hobby stuff mainly). I'm perfectly comfortable knowing that I'll spend a lot more time waiting for it to finish parts than I would with a Haas. I'll use that time to count all the money I'll save.

[Steve Seebold]

Yeah, and thus, "this makes no sense"... I liked my 1100, but its no HAAS, OTOH, its just a hobby toy for me, so hard to justify the Haas. If I was running a business, I'd go HAAS tho.

I can do “anything” on my Tormach you can do on a Haas or any of those other high dollar industrial machines, it just takes me a little longer and my Tormach didn’t cost $75,000.00.

[Jim Dawson]

I had to select ''Made no Sense'' because they are completely different machines.

We had to make a similar choice a few months back. We have a BP clone CNC mill that has served us well for a number of years. That and a manual lathe allowed us to protype and build some of our new product line, but it became clear that to do any real production we were going to have to do something different. So the search was on.

The real dilemma here was the question as to whether we had a viable product or not. At this point we didn't know, but if the orders started rolling in we would not have the production capacity to fill them. But if the product flopped, then we would have a rather large paper weight sitting in the shop. The good news is that we did not have to borrow money to buy equipment, had that been the case, then it would have dramatically affected the decision. Even a year later, we are still trying to figure out if we are going to have a real business or run a hobby shop business. We have orders, but not at the volume that would really make it a viable business. We're working on that.

We did look at the Tormach 1100 and rejected it in the first round as being just a really nice hobby machine, but really not up to our production needs, the spindle speed was limited, and at $23,000 we couldn't see the value for us. The only other real option was Haas or other older used equipment of which there is plenty available. So after looking around we decided that a Haas made the most sense for us, so now it was a matter of which one. The other consideration was spindle HP in that we are a home shop with somewhat limited available single phase power.

Unlike many startups cost was not the major consideration, but rather what was going to meet our needs. We were prepared to buy new if need be. After a couple of weeks looking at Ebay and Craigslist ads and chatting with Haas sales we found a couple of Ebay machines that looked promising. A TM1P in Las Vegas, and a TM2P in Florida. So a couple of airplane rides later we finally settled on the TM2P in Florida because it turned out to be the unicorn machine. One year old, 122 spindle hours, and was equipped with every option that Haas offered for that machine, including a 20 tool changer, and in addition came well equipped with tooling.

It was delivered to our door for about $43,000. We have the equipment on this end to do our own rigging so only cost a couple hundred for a heavy swivel hook so we could rotate it while lifting from the top. We didn't see the need to bring in a Haas tech to set it up, it was delivered on a Friday afternoon and we made first chips with it on Monday morning.

Compared to the quotes we were getting from outside vendors, the machine has paid for itself in the last 9 months. And those quotes would have put us well above of the price point we were trying to hit for our product. Labor cost in this case is zero because we work pretty cheap when working for ourselves. What was taking 4 to 5 hours on the knee mill because of limited spindle speed, the Haas would do in an hour with the 6000 RPM spindle, almost enough HP, and reasonably fast rapids.

[Steve Seebold]

I had to select ''Made no Sense'' because they are completely different machines.

We had to make a similar choice a few months back. We have a BP clone CNC mill that has served us well for a number of years. That and a manual lathe allowed us to protype and build some of our new product line, but it became clear that to do any real production we were going to have to do something different. So the search was on.

The real dilemma here was the question as to whether we had a viable product or not. At this point we didn't know, but if the orders started rolling in we would not have the production capacity to fill them. But if the product flopped, then we would have a rather large paper weight sitting in the shop. The good news is that we did not have to borrow money to buy equipment, had that been the case, then it would have dramatically affected the decision. Even a year later, we are still trying to figure out if we are going to have a real business or run a hobby shop business. We have orders, but not at the volume that would really make it a viable business. We're working on that.

We did look at the Tormach 1100 and rejected it in the first round as being just a really nice hobby machine, but really not up to our production needs, the spindle speed was limited, and at $23,000 we couldn't see the value for us. The only other real option was Haas or other older used equipment of which there is plenty available. So after looking around we decided that a Haas made the most sense for us, so now it was a matter of which one. The other consideration was spindle HP in that we are a home shop with somewhat limited available single phase power.

Unlike many startups cost was not the major consideration, but rather what was going to meet our needs. We were prepared to buy new if need be. After a couple of weeks looking at Ebay and Craigslist ads and chatting with Haas sales we found a couple of Ebay machines that looked promising. A TM1P in Las Vegas, and a TM2P in Florida. So a couple of airplane rides later we finally settled on the TM2P in Florida because it turned out to be the unicorn machine. One year old, 122 spindle hours, and was equipped with every option that Haas offered for that machine, including a 20 tool changer, and in addition came well equipped with tooling.

It was delivered to our door for about $43,000. We have the equipment on this end to do our own rigging so only cost a couple hundred for a heavy swivel hook so we could rotate it while lifting from the top. We didn't see the need to bring in a Haas tech to set it up, it was delivered on a Friday afternoon and we made first chips with it on Monday morning.

Compared to the quotes we were getting from outside vendors, the machine has paid for itself in the last 9 months. And those quotes would have put us well above of the price point we were trying to hit for our product. Labor cost in this case is zero because we work pretty cheap when working for ourselves. What was taking 4 to 5 hours on the knee mill because of limited spindle speed, the Haas would do in an hour with the 6000 RPM spindle, almost enough HP, and reasonably fast rapids.

The 6,000 RPM spindle is only 900 more than the Tormach, but the extra 6 horsepower will make a huge difference and 200 IPM rapids won’t hurt anything either.

[Jim Dawson]

The 6,000 RPM spindle is only 900 more than the Tormach, but the extra 6 horsepower will make a huge difference and 200 IPM rapids won’t hurt anything either.

Actually 400 IPM rapids, and yes, the extra HP really makes a difference. When we're roughing out a part the spindle load is 75-85% in most cases. Allows you to really move some material. We do a lot of cutting in aluminum at 180 to 220 IPM