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That's not even remotely "the problem" with PC based controls...it is "a" problem but "the" problem is, being PC's they are subject to crashing...just like your home computer. And, like your home computer, they take "forever" to boot up.The problem with PC based controls is the rate at which the technology changes. PC parts that are cheap and easy to find today may be next to impossible to find 6 or 7 years from now.
Depends on your definition of production. With no automatic tool changer, 65ipm rapids, stepper motors and a 1.5hp R8 spindle I'm pretty sure your idea of production would be different from mine. My desktop mill had 120ipm rapids, a 2hp geared head spindle, and servo motors and it was laughable to compare that to a real VMC. I'm not trying to be harsh, I have just been down this road of desktop mill marketing BS before. I was once as confident in my desktop purchase as you seem to be today.As an owner of a Tormach - and using it for production (albeit on a limited scale)
You are assuming either company will be around when you need replacements. Last I read the Geckos guy was talking about folding up his shop and retiring to a beach since someone was supposedly pirating his designs. And how long as this Centents been in business? The company that made my desktop mill has already closed shop.would be a cinch to replace with either Geckos or Centents should the need arise.
PC hardware is prone to crash and failure DOS or or not. Its not built to industrial standards for harsh environments in terms of vibration and EMI from electrical motors. My desktop mill went through three PC's, the first crashed several times a day so I went with higher end Intel motherboards and while those crashed less frequently it fried two of them in a little over 2 years. Which brings us back to production in a commercial enterprise. You just can't have that frequency of failure and the associated wasted time, scrapped tooling and stock.I use Turbo CNC - mainly because it's DOS based
Lost steps is no small issue as the error is cumulative and for long running parts a disaster in terms of accuracy and finish.- maybe a bit faster but then you will very occasionally lose steps.
By brother bought it at an auction.I don't know where the hell a person could find a VF Haas for 12 grand
That's certainly a possibility but its also possible to buy a perfectly capable used machine for a good price if you know what you are doing, my brother did. I don't suggest that one will find some miracle deal on a VF3 or something. The VF1 he bought was quite old but in very good shape.And in fact I DID go this route before buying my Tormach and it was an absolute DISASTER.
Time will tell. You push it to production volume levels and let us know how it holds up. That's when my desktop mill went all to hell.No the Tormach does not have the capabilities of a bigger machine, but when I go out in my shop and turn on the power every day - it works.
You are buying into the desktop mill marketing hype brother. If your machine is not in the cut making chips its not making money. Listen, the desktop mills feed and rapid at pitifully slow speeds. They lack automatic tool changers. The spindles are slow and the work cubes are small. Yet they can't resist hinting that these desktop mills compare with cnc machines designed for production volume so they say well it doesn't matter because you spend most of your time programming and doing setups. That's just nonsense.is that a lot more time is taken up with programming and setups and debugging and protype work than actually metal cutting.
The question is how soon will you out grow this machine? Maybe you'll be able to ebay that machine for $5k and maybe you won't. What will you do with all the R8 tooling?I don't think the Tormach is a great machine, but I do think it is a good one, and it fills a completely empty niche - small, new, CNC (non-knee) mills between 6 and 10k. I looked for a looong time and never found anything else that competes with it in that range.
I have been down that path already. That was my big plan when I purchased my desktop mill and my brother was trying to talk sense into me. I figured the desktop mill would fund a bigger mill down the road.I also look at this from the standpoint that if I can make decent money with such a small machine and small investment in capital, down the road, having a bigger machine will put an awful lot of icing on the profit cake.
The approach I would have with this sort of thing, and in fact what I did when I manufactured tapping machinery back in the 1990's, would be to have a cheap desktop CNC mill* for prototype parts and then some low volume. But when things really kicked into gear I would simply sub the parts out to a larger shop with production machinery. Then if the "high gear" mode held...then I would buy the full blown CNC and bring them back in house.I tell you what will cure you guys from your desktop mill-itus. You will get an idea and prototype a widget. Everyone says hey thats cool and you sell a few. Then the widget catches on and bang you have 30 or 40 orders for your widget. When you have worked every free hour for a solid month trying to fill the orders with a horse and buggy speed desktop mill trust me you will have a new perspective. And when you start pushing these desktop mills to run 8-12 hours a day and they start breaking down when you promised a customer their stuff would ship tomorrow you will think back on this thread.
Spending 10K (this is the price range the thread started with) for a desk top machine, and then add the necessary tooling and measuring instruments, etc. to do some prototype work and low volumes doesn't make a lot of sense to me if you are going to turn around and then sub out the gravy (production). Even worse is spending 10K on a new bench top to turn around and change the software or otherwise try to modify it to run better/faster. What does this tell you?The approach I would have with this sort of thing ... would be to have a cheap desktop CNC mill* for prototype parts and then some low volume. But when things really kicked into gear I would simply sub the parts out to a larger shop with production machinery. Then if the "high gear" mode held...then I would buy the full blown CNC and bring them back in house.
Ah, but that's where I have a very different perspective in that the "gravy" for me was actually the whole machine that the parts made up. The subbed out parts were a relativlely small portion of the total cost.doesn't make a lot of sense to me if you are going to turn around and then sub out the gravy (production)
That's exactly what I did, except I bought a $50K used Cincinnati VMC because I needed 24" of Y travel for my 'prototypes'. All the volume went out to other shops, until delivery and quality issues forced me to buy another identical machine so I could run production in house and still be able to make prototypes without tearing down a setup. We've considered a knee mill since then, but decided against it, preferring the capability of the VMCs even for one offs.The approach I would have with this sort of thing, and in fact what I did when I manufactured tapping machinery back in the 1990's, would be to have a cheap desktop CNC mill* for prototype parts and then some low volume. But when things really kicked into gear I would simply sub the parts out to a larger shop with production machinery. Then if the "high gear" mode held...then I would buy the full blown CNC and bring them back in house.
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