Help me pick a VMC. Upgrading from a Tormach

I work almost exclusively with stainless and titanium. The thickest parts I work with are 1/4" thick, apart from fixtures. My largest tool is 16mm wide

I am mostly concerned with reliability, which is why I want to go with the Brother Speedio s700x1, which also takes care of the speed and accuracy departments. The downside is that it's on the far end of my budget, which means I'd have to wait to get the double station orange vises I so dearly want (but don't *need*)

It's a bit lacking in the horsepower and rigidity department though. Of course, I can go with the 10k spindle, or the 10k high torque, or the 10k high torque dual contact. I'm sure dual contact brings it out of my price range though.

Then there's the haas VF2SS. Easily the least expensive. All I hear about them is that they're good for the money, they do the job, or that they're unreliable.

Next up, the Doosan DNM400II 12k. It looks much more robust. The price is in the same range as the others. It comes with CTS and dual contact standard, and the most tool slots of the whole lot. I can't say I've ever met a doosan owner though so my only opinion of them is that their sales rep is a nice guy.

Also the hurco VM10i but their focus seems to be on conversational programming, so meh. Plus their spindle was fairly loud during the demo. Fine surface finishes saves me a lot of time.



I know literally anything is going to do the job faster and more reliably than the tormach. I just want to be sure that I'm not regretting the machine I end up with as soon as I get it. There's a lot of upsides and downsides to each to consider, so if you have two cents to throw in, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for your time

Couple of questions....

You're upgrading from a Tormach - do you really need all the real estate of a S700; would a S500 do? And how big are the parts you're making? Orange also has 4.5in double vises now. All this by way of asking if you can downsize a bit on the hardware could fit your budget.

Fred

Whats proving unreliable with the tormach?

As to machine, local supports key to long term reliability, may help to mention what state you in.

Pretty much anything you get your hands on is going to have more speed, power, and rigidity than the tormach.

That guy Brad at Tactical Keychains went from a tormach to a fanuc robodrill mate and it just totally kills the tormach on every level.

That drillmate is the bottom end of the robodrill ladder.

That Brother speedio will be better than the fanuc, have more power, speed, and accuracy, so I don't think "underpowered" is what you are going to be saying.

But yeah, I've heard the 10k high-torque is the way to go. If you are doing really small endmills, then the 16k spindle would be a good choice.

Keep in mind that the speedio will have 12HP continuous with the HT spindle, that's 6 TIMES the tormach peak power and twice the RPM!

And saying it lacks rigidity is what I would say is an uneducated statement, especially compared to the tormach.

EDIT:I see you are on a Tormach 770, not an 1100, you can basically double everything I said in comparison to a tormach.

adama said:

Whats proving unreliable with the tormach?

As to machine, local supports key to long term reliability, may help to mention what state you in.

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From another post: I'm in New Hampshire

Freds said:

Couple of questions....

You're upgrading from a Tormach - do you really need all the real estate of a S700; would a S500 do? And how big are the parts you're making? Orange also has 4.5in double vises now. All this by way of asking if you can downsize a bit on the hardware could fit your budget.

Fred

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The more real estate, the better, essentially. I run large batches of 5 and 6 inch long parts. It'd be great to fit two orange vise pallets on there along with a tool probe.

adama said:

Whats proving unreliable with the tormach?

As to machine, local supports key to long term reliability, may help to mention what state you in.

Click to expand...

NH, as mentioned by another user. The tormach lacked rigidity, accuracy, repeatability, longevity, power, and speed. Their new control software is great though. It has never given me trouble. Mach3 was a real pain in my everything. For that reason the tormach will have a place in my new shop as as the world's most overpowered engraving machine. All the companies have support within 1hr45 of me. A bit less when I move closer to the highway.

Perry Harrington said:

Pretty much anything you get your hands on is going to have more speed, power, and rigidity than the tormach.

That guy Brad at Tactical Keychains went from a tormach to a fanuc robodrill mate and it just totally kills the tormach on every level.

That drillmate is the bottom end of the robodrill ladder.

That Brother speedio will be better than the fanuc, have more power, speed, and accuracy, so I don't think "underpowered" is what you are going to be saying.

But yeah, I've heard the 10k high-torque is the way to go. If you are doing really small endmills, then the 16k spindle would be a good choice.

Keep in mind that the speedio will have 12HP continuous with the HT spindle, that's 6 TIMES the tormach peak power and twice the RPM!

And saying it lacks rigidity is what I would say is an uneducated statement, especially compared to the tormach.

EDIT:I see you are on a Tormach 770, not an 1100, you can basically double everything I said in comparison to a tormach.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been talking to brad over the last couple years. Good guy.

I'm leaning toward the high torque spindle as well. I wish the 16k spindle wasn't also a lower HP than the standard 10k. It's not only for the power, but for what I'd like to clarify about my statement on rigidity.

That's a concern I have because I make knives. The market can dry up. I don't see it happening soon, but having a mill with a wider range of capabilities would be nice if I suddenly needed to start selling entirely different things. Rigidity and power aren't concerns I have for my current work, but potential future work. It's a downside. By no means a dealbreaker, but a downside.

GDO said:

Yeah, I've been talking to brad over the last couple years. Good guy.

I'm leaning toward the high torque spindle as well. I wish the 16k spindle wasn't also a lower HP than the standard 10k. It's not only for the power, but for what I'd like to clarify about my statement on rigidity.

That's a concern I have because I make knives. The market can dry up. I don't see it happening soon, but having a mill with a wider range of capabilities would be nice if I suddenly needed to start selling entirely different things. Rigidity and power aren't concerns I have for my current work, but potential future work. It's a downside. By no means a dealbreaker, but a downside.

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If you're worried about future work, worry about making lots of little widgets with short cycle times. From a generalized point of view that speedio is a real breadwinner. You are going to beat every guy with a haas that is quoting the same work envelope as that machine.

Is there a reason you are looking at the Haas ss, and not a standard vf2? I've heard good things about the Brother, but no personal experience. I have used Haas for many years and have not found a job I couldn't do with them. To what Perry said about "You are going to beat every guy with a haas that is quoting the same work envelope as that machine." I don't believe that flat out. If you are experienced in quoting and making jobs fast, and good fixturing, best of the best tools, maybe. But having a better machine does not guarantee more money, or even faster cycle times. That is all related to programming experience, set-ups, quick changovers, etc etc.

I must have missed something. If you do exclusively SS and Ti, why are you looking at more than 10k spindles. I am well versed in radial chip thinning and high speed machining, but I am having a hard time visualizing the need for any spindle that fast. Secondly, it's been my experience that with the faster spindles, the torque band is misplaced. I would want maximum torque between 1800 rpm and 3500 rpm. Hopefully someone that machines these materials in production will jump in.


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FYI moving towards the highway even if a bit ore distance will significantly increase the likely hood of passing support from sales to techs, hence its gotta help.

After that its probaly more about what kinda a deal you can get on a machine. I thinks its fair to say most of us would like the problem of having to pick which spindle in a brother, regrettably i think it probably makes way more sense to look at what kinda deals you can get. Your current works not going to over tax most of the machines your looking at.

Vise wise if your parts are small enough it might make more sense to look at some of the multi station vices out there, If your making the size bits you say you are, it would make a massive productivity bump to fit more on the table. Sounds like your a one man band, hence the more parts on the table the longer you can leave it doing its thing, weather that times spent posting here or sending out - assembling products irrelevant, it frees you up and that has some really significant value. Sticking 2 double vices just gives you 4 parts, get something better and you can easily double or triple that. Net results less tool changes and less time spent walking over to it to swap parts out.

Hence what ever you decide, budget wise i would make sure theres the funds set aside to give you the tooling you need with it to really get the best out of it. Other wise its going to be akin to buying a second tormach!!

G00 Proto said:

I must have missed something. If you do exclusively SS and Ti, why are you looking at more than 10k spindles. I am well versed in radial chip thinning and high speed machining, but I am having a hard time visualizing the need for any spindle that fast. Secondly, it's been my experience that with the faster spindles, the torque band is misplaced. I would want maximum torque between 1800 rpm and 3500 rpm. Hopefully someone that machines these materials in production will jump in.


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Click to expand...

He is making small parts with small tools.

The rapids might be faster on a brother..but the setup time is sooo much easier on the Haas. As far as quoting jobs goes, looks like a one man shop making his own parts. Kind of a large step to venture out and compete with established job shops..no matter what machine he buys.
Gary

dstryr said:

He is making small parts with small tools.

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Small parts or not, a VF2 is not a good machine for stainless or titanium work. The rigidity is just not there. I have made many thousands of aluminum parts on a VF2SS, and the Haas was mostly reliable and consistant. But it did not like stainless, and absolutely hated the A286 and Ti-6Al-4V parts. There was a very noticeable difference between the same parts on the Haas and the Kitamura horizontal in regards to surface finish, tool life, and general machinability. And the last job of parts out of 17-4 annealed was a nightmare that randomly ate tooling no matter what I did. Being able to hold a tiny tool accurately and rigidly is every bit as important as with a large tool in hard and heat resistant materials. And our Haas, at least, was only barely up to the task. Now our new Bridgeport GX480, on the other hand, had all the rigidity and torque of damp spaghetti. Made the Haas look like it was made of nuclear granite.

6061Mike said:

Is there a reason you are looking at the Haas ss, and not a standard vf2? I've heard good things about the Brother, but no personal experience. I have used Haas for many years and have not found a job I couldn't do with them. To what Perry said about "You are going to beat every guy with a haas that is quoting the same work envelope as that machine." I don't believe that flat out. If you are experienced in quoting and making jobs fast, and good fixturing, best of the best tools, maybe. But having a better machine does not guarantee more money, or even faster cycle times. That is all related to programming experience, set-ups, quick changovers, etc etc.

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The parts I put on pallets are prepped for that with pinholes. Long story short, the faster travel are a bonus and fast tool changes will save hours per batch of parts in the vises.

I'm not so concerned with being able to offer other people better quotes as I am concerned with what my next product could be. Job shop work isn't my forte. That aspect of what machine to buy is more of an afterthought compared to reliability and accuracy.

Winterfalke said:

Small parts or not, a VF2 is not a good machine for stainless or titanium work. The rigidity is just not there. I have made many thousands of aluminum parts on a VF2SS, and the Haas was mostly reliable and consistant. But it did not like stainless, and absolutely hated the A286 and Ti-6Al-4V parts. There was a very noticeable difference between the same parts on the Haas and the Kitamura horizontal in regards to surface finish, tool life, and general machinability. And the last job of parts out of 17-4 annealed was a nightmare that randomly ate tooling no matter what I did. Being able to hold a tiny tool accurately and rigidly is every bit as important as with a large tool in hard and heat resistant materials. And our Haas, at least, was only barely up to the task. Now our new Bridgeport GX480, on the other hand, had all the rigidity and torque of damp spaghetti. Made the Haas look like it was made of nuclear granite.

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what kind of cuts were you doing in the stainless? solid carbide? insert tooling? slotting? trochoidal?

G00 Proto said:

I must have missed something. If you do exclusively SS and Ti, why are you looking at more than 10k spindles. I am well versed in radial chip thinning and high speed machining, but I am having a hard time visualizing the need for any spindle that fast. Secondly, it's been my experience that with the faster spindles, the torque band is misplaced. I would want maximum torque between 1800 rpm and 3500 rpm. Hopefully someone that machines these materials in production will jump in.


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Click to expand...

I know I'll never need 10k+ for titanium but for stainless I use it regularly since the vast majority of my tools are under 3/8". I do also process brass and copper occasionally. I do a lot of fast, light cuts, which is why brother is even on my radar.

Thank you for bringing up the torque band. I hadn't been giving that any thought really

Cycle1000 said:

The rapids might be faster on a brother..but the setup time is sooo much easier on the Haas. As far as quoting jobs goes, looks like a one man shop making his own parts. Kind of a large step to venture out and compete with established job shops..no matter what machine he buys.
Gary

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True. I don't plan on job shops. Any change in what I'd require from a machine tool would be because I'm making completely different products

adama said:

FYI moving towards the highway even if a bit ore distance will significantly increase the likely hood of passing support from sales to techs, hence its gotta help.

After that its probaly more about what kinda a deal you can get on a machine. I thinks its fair to say most of us would like the problem of having to pick which spindle in a brother, regrettably i think it probably makes way more sense to look at what kinda deals you can get. Your current works not going to over tax most of the machines your looking at.

Vise wise if your parts are small enough it might make more sense to look at some of the multi station vices out there, If your making the size bits you say you are, it would make a massive productivity bump to fit more on the table. Sounds like your a one man band, hence the more parts on the table the longer you can leave it doing its thing, weather that times spent posting here or sending out - assembling products irrelevant, it frees you up and that has some really significant value. Sticking 2 double vices just gives you 4 parts, get something better and you can easily double or triple that. Net results less tool changes and less time spent walking over to it to swap parts out.

Hence what ever you decide, budget wise i would make sure theres the funds set aside to give you the tooling you need with it to really get the best out of it. Other wise its going to be akin to buying a second tormach!!

Click to expand...

All these machines are within my budget and, though I don't have cash to pay them off immediately, I do have enough cash to make payments for 10 months, plus living expenses, even if I didn't make a dime until then. All the quotes I'm getting have $5k in there for a tooling package, which gets me about 130% of the tools I need and carbide to last me a couple months.

The double station vises are definite. at least one. Another when cash starts coming back in.

As to being jn NH I am too. We have Methods and Able down the road. A DMG Mori showroom in Seabrook. There's another in mass which I'm drawing a blank on but they sell kitamura. Oh yea and haas/trident in Manch and Lowell. We have bought machines from methods able and Haas. Service has never been an issue.