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Is Brother TC-S2C-O a good fit?

Holke F11V

Plastic
Joined
Mar 17, 2019
Hi all,

My small 1 man shop is in need of a second spindle and I am looking for some opinions. I am a standard job shop running 304, 1018, and lots of 6061. I operate out of a smaller garage with a 2019 TM1P 10K and probing as well as several other machines but I need more milling production capacity and well as a backup. I know the Haas is not rigid and very slow but it has served me well and fits my power and space needs. Moving forward with what work I see coming in and the short fallings of the TM1 when running small production runs I am going to purchase a used machine. The Brother mills in regards to there space, power requirements, and reliability look to fit the bill. I have reached out to Yamazen to get an estimate on price if at some point I need to have a tech out and they have been very nice to work with so far. The 2 machines I have under consideration are a 2006 TC-S2C-O and a 2012 TC-S2Dn-O. The S2C machines fetch a significantly lower price than the S2Dn's and aside from a the servo turret and small memory increase are there any major differences between the two? Also, am I correct in feeling that although the TM1 is a cat 40 its rigidity is soo low that the BT30 machines should be similar. Thoughts? Thanks
 
An S2C (O means 700mm X travel) will serve you well. Turret is not servo but still fast tool changes if you organize your tools so they are adjacent as much as possible. S2C and S2D machines both have B00 control with 10 Mb standard memory, USB, ethernet ... Overall condition, options, upgrades and price would drive my decision. Glad to hear you checked with local support too. I hear of so many people purchasing used equipment and then hoping support is there after the fact. :nutter:
 
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Thanks for the reply. Thats a nice amount of memory to work with on an older machine. Is the B-00 control fairly easy to pick up?
 
We typically can train someone familiar with CNC in 2 to 4 hours. People are generally very comfortable with the Brother control in a few days. Programming is nearly identical to a haas or fanuc control vmc. Plenty of helpful people here besides your local support to assist you. The B00 is very similar to the C00 Speedio control as far as navigating etc...
 
Holke F11V: If you can have someone look the machine over prior to buying. I bought a super beater Brother (A00 Control) and if I buy another used one I would pull the Y axis way covers off at least. This is where I've had most of my problems because neglectful owners just let the chips sit and the y axis is where things accumulate. Also, I bought one of the Maritool "Tool Probe Calibrators". This is just a tool with a ground tip, super concentric to the taper. I would also take that with me and an indicator. Along with hearing the spindle run.

The good news is that if you have issues Yamazen support is great.

On my A00 machine I've installed a new spindle, new Y axis ball screw, new y axis servo motor. new Y axis linear bearings, upgraded the memory, and a new servo drive. I was able to do all the work myself. Very easy machines to work on. I'm not complaining the machine has 72k power on hours and 22k cutting hours. Still runs great. Most of the stuff I had to do was from neglect of the previous owner.
 
Good info. I'll definitely take some tools to pull of the y axis way covers to have a look inside. Do you know if adding a tool probe alone is possible on these older machines? Also, are these spindles (10k) designed to run at full rpm for an extended length of time? Thanks again
 
For sure designed to run 10k 100% of the time. I didn't replace my spindle because the bearings were bad but because it had a little more than .001" of runout. It still sounded fine. I probably could have had it ground but the replacement was $2500 and only about a two hour job to replace.

I'm pretty sure a tool probe is not problem. The Brothers come with all the I/O already installed as standard.
 
You can add Renishaw, Blum, Metrol and other Tool setting/breakage detecting probes. My favorite is the Blum Znano. Installed 100s of those. Check with your local Yamazen for more info. They will have macros and everything needed to install.
 
Sounds like Brother is definitely a fit. They seem to age well and have quite a bit to offer even on the older machines.
 
I'll make the prediction now that once you have a Brother on the floor we'll see the TM-1 for sale in the near future...
 
Hard to say. The TM for what it is can makes money and that's what counts. I would definitely be curious to see if Brother has the increased build quality that everyone speaks of as well as the lack of the somewhat glichy NGC that the Haas does have. It is somewhat hard to believe that the BT30 non dual contact will perform as well and reliably as a cat 40 machine but who am I too say. Thanks again to everyone for the insight once again.
 
I think the point is when you buy a fast machine, you start moving the work to the fast machine and eventually stop using the slow machine

Something like a Brother can be literally twice as fast as a regular VMC, no less a toolroom CNC.
We moved a job from a Bridgport VMC with 1000IPM rapids to my DMG and cut cycle time nearly in half. It is one of the longest part cycle time jobs we run because we have to trim a bunch of fins off a part. Went from something like 8 minutes a table load to 5.

Half a day time saved

You look at your slow machine and say, nevermind
 
Hard to say. The TM for what it is can makes money and that's what counts. I would definitely be curious to see if Brother has the increased build quality that everyone speaks of as well as the lack of the somewhat glichy NGC that the Haas does have. It is somewhat hard to believe that the BT30 non dual contact will perform as well and reliably as a cat 40 machine but who am I too say. Thanks again to everyone for the insight once again.

If you do pull the trigger on a Brother spend some time reading the many posts here on getting the most out of a 30 taper machine. My old brother was my first cnc mill. All my other life experience was with a bridgeport manual mill. I think if you come from a 40 taper background you'll need to work a little differently.

Even my 20 year old brother has heart-attack fast rapids and super fast tool changes so there's nothing not to like there.
 
I think the point is when you buy a fast machine, you start moving the work to the fast machine and eventually stop using the slow machine

Something like a Brother can be literally twice as fast as a regular VMC, no less a toolroom CNC.
We moved a job from a Bridgport VMC with 1000IPM rapids to my DMG and cut cycle time nearly in half. It is one of the longest part cycle time jobs we run because we have to trim a bunch of fins off a part. Went from something like 8 minutes a table load to 5.

Half a day time saved

You look at your slow machine and say, nevermind

We use alot of small tools 1/16" 1/32" and even smaller. I calculated a 6 minute (rough) cycle time advantage for 15 rpm - 10k rpm. For a run we are looking at that equals

-500+ hours over the course of the run = 12 40 hour (no second/third shift for us) weeks savings. I couldn't imagine the difference with a Brother. :eek:
 
Hard to say. The TM for what it is can makes money and that's what counts. I would definitely be curious to see if Brother has the increased build quality that everyone speaks of as well as the lack of the somewhat glichy NGC that the Haas does have. It is somewhat hard to believe that the BT30 non dual contact will perform as well and reliably as a cat 40 machine but who am I too say. Thanks again to everyone for the insight once again.

Holke, I'm not knocking the TM as a bad machine, and I think they're a good entry/stepping point. But after getting used to being able to spot, drill, AND tap, before the TM do a tool change kind of affects your views.
 
We use alot of small tools 1/16" 1/32" and even smaller. I calculated a 6 minute (rough) cycle time advantage for 15 rpm - 10k rpm. For a run we are looking at that equals

-500+ hours over the course of the run = 12 40 hour (no second/third shift for us) weeks savings. I couldn't imagine the difference with a Brother. :eek:

One of the most popular Brother spindles is the 27k High Speed. Great for small tools but still plenty of power to run a 5" OSG face mill, 1/2" rougher in aluminum 1.25" deep or go to town on steel or Ti with 1/2" end mill hsm. This part was 4 minutes flat with 7 tools:

2013-04-29 09.05.09.jpg

5" face mill, 1/2" rougher, 1/2 finisher, 3/32 end mill, drill, 0-80 tap, chamfer mill. Pocket is 1" deep, Outside contour is 1.25" deep. No sweat. Tool balancing not required with quality holders at 27k rpm. Spindle gets to 27k in 0.6 seconds with a tool in it.
 
Sorry all I haven't got back to the post recently. I definitely agree on the dreadfully slow tm1p tool changes. BROTHERFRANK, very impressive times with that part you show. I'm definitely sold, hopefully pulling the trigger on a 2012 TC-S2Dn-O with 10K, probing, LNS conveyor, CTS, and a YUKIWA YNC200L 4th. I've been on the phone with american rotary and still am a bit confused as to the sizing of the rotary I would need for this machine. He is recommending a 25hp model based on the the serial number tag showing a max power requirement of 35.8 kva. What is the realistic power need for these, am I going over the top getting a 25hp rotary? I would be using it for just this machine and would be adding a buck/boost transformer as well. Also, does the cts pump add additional power needs or is it included in the number on the serial number tag? Sorry for all the questions, but the help is second to none.
 
I have a 30hp American Rotary and I have an old Brother A00 control Machine and a new C00 control S1000. I also have mazak Qt15. I haven't run all three of these at the same time but have had not problem running any two at the same time. I did a bunch of current measurements on my Brothers when I got the second. I was just trying to find the post where I posted my readings but couldn't. I think idle current is like 6-8 amps. When the spindle ramps up or down the current draw spikes to like 120amps for a fraction of a second. Bottom line 25hp is probably overkill but better too big than too small.

You may need a step down transformer for it. The voltage of my phase converter runs about 250v which is pretty high. I ran the old brother off that for 4-5 years but just recently put a step down transformer on it. On my S1000 I bought a 15kva american rotary stepdown transformer. They sell them on ebay.
 
Thanks for the info, I believe that is the same transformer that they called out for me as well. What size breaker are you running off? I was planning on an 80.
 








 
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