About 20 Months Later - Would I Buy Another One? - PCNC1100

[CL_MotoTech]

If you didn't read it all then why should anybody care about your response? Seems a little neurotic, eh?

[deadlykitten]

what others do/think is their business this does not mean that i don't respect others, but i avoid thinking for them ... i can't

[mountaindew]

Yeah, +/- .005" isn't much of an endorsement.

That said, I'd probably buy an 1100 used. Definitely not new. It's not enough machine for the price to justify a new purchase.

Was going to say my machine will hit any preset offset from home switches at +/- 0.002 or better after machine is shut off for day and parts are all next digit out or better.

[Bob La Londe]

hy bob, i don't have time to read all, but all i can tell is that many shops consider buying another new/used machine, without considering 1st the possibility to increase productivity with less cost compared to the new machine
... if you are working in 1 shift, go 2 shifts
... if your tools are neah, try better tooling
... when the spindle is stopped, what is the cause ? make a list with all the causes and their duration; after few months you should now exactly how much time was lost and why; it seem to be a mill; common causes that leads to mill downtime are :
...... less preparatory operations, downtime with setup, etc : invest in diy fixtures, quick-change types, etc
...... too much time to edit and reload the program
...... chips evacuation
...... restart issues during long operations
... when the spindle is spinning, what is the productivity ? like is it possible to do this job in 50%-75% of actual time ?

if you wish, considers the improvement costs, and compare them to the monthly costs and long term costs of getting another machine

a cnc has to be considered a cost unit, and there are cases when a new machine is decreasing the profits, even if it is running / kindly

When I bought the Tormach 1100 it was intended primarily to prep and size blanks for the high RPM machines, and do a few secondary operations. In theory (and in practice) it should do some types of roughing and prep work in less time than the "faster" machines that have no torque under about 8000RPM. 60 to 75% time savings resulted in some of these operations in spite of having to set the same part up twice. Then I began playing with ideas to design jobs around the 1100s capabilities so it would not be sitting idle when it wasn't roughing blanks. Then jobs came in that were ideally suited to the 1100 as well. It got so it was so busy doing its own jobs I often didn't have machine time available to do prep work for the other machines. Now the other machines can do their own prep work, but when you look at huge time savings by splitting the jobs between machines ideally suited to different types of operations its hard to want to go back to that. It actually motivated me to repair my Hurco KMB1 when I had previously planned to salvage it out, and eventually replace it. I'm glad I didn't salvage it out. Its an awesome machine for that heavy slow steel cutting work that the Tormach struggles with. Anyway, when I said I considered buying another Tormach it would pay its own way. This one is already doing a lot more work than it was originally planned to do. I already do layouts so I can cut multiple parts at one time, and recently discovered ATP5 tooling plate which is considerably less expensive than MIC6 for doing multiple setup fixture plates. Now I have the Hurco doing prep work for the Tormach (larger work envelope) prepping fixture plates.

Recently I was doing a largish multiple piece order with the Tormach running continuously doing a first set of operations on two work pieces at a time and the Hurco was doing several short cycle time secondary operations and setups on the same parts. Tied up both machines for weeks. The poor little high speed mills wasted hours doing prep work that the Tormach had been doing for them before.


HOWEVER NONE OF THAT WAS WHY I MADE THIS POST.

[deadlykitten]

... you seem to know your kitchen well; good luck

[rdsi]

If you want to get one according to the Tormach website there is only 1 left.
That could be the last one made & going forward it might only be the M series???
I can hardly believe I've had mine for 6 years.
The question now is would you buy an M series?
I'm not in the market but I would want linear rails, servos, BT30, an 8K to 10K spindle and at least 3HP.
The MX gets close but for the money I would be looking at the whole field of offerings.
There are more now than there were 6 years ago!

[Kenny Duval]

I'm not in the market but I would want linear rails, servos, BT30, an 8K to 10K spindle and at least 3HP.

I just bought that exact spec.

[mountaindew]

I just bought that exact spec.

Please post a thread somewhere on what your doing and using. I like to see what others are up to.
Industrial user, Cottage industry user, Job shop, Casual maker and home shoppers all have interesting experience that I learn from. I must say a couple home shop people I follow closely are by far the most experienced and talented engineers, machinist and builders that share their work on the net. 1/4 scale 12 cylinder Merlin engine complete with blower is just one example that comes to mind.

Anyway I like your picture. I did the mx thing for a few years long ago and still an avid fan. Didn't last long because I didn't understand how to ride at 80%. Always went 110+% and the results were broken machines and inconsistent finish. A lesson I learned much later in life playing golf of all things.

[Bob La Londe]

A lesson I learned much later in life playing golf of all things.

That's were I learned I was better with metal than wood.

[old-cnc-geek]

All of these work fine in PathPilot for the last 6 months at least. Upgrade (free) to 2.3.6 or later and you'll enjoy them also. The current work offset is shown right above the axis DROs for me. e.g. "POS IN G54" or "POS in G54.1 P500" for the new expanded 500 work offsets.


"The clock disappears during a tool change. When you stop a program the display defaults back to line 1. It doesn't have any way that I see to show what work offset you are working in."