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Folks using Orange Vise

T

thunderskunk

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 13, 2018
Location
Middle-of-nowhere
Hey folks,

I’ve learned a lot picking your brains about quick change fixtures. So far I’ve been scoffing at orange vise as a gimmick product, but they caught my eye so I took a second look. The concept is pretty stinkin novel with the built in mitee bites, dovetail jaws, v groove pallets, locating ball locks, etc.

I know there’s a fella here from orange vise as well, I’m sure he’ll chime in. What’s the overall impression on them? Huge time saver or just a minor convenience?
 
I know I am planning on changing over to them this year,
I like them for the simple fact that you can get a 6" vise in different lengths. going to change them to the double vises. then they also have a new vise thats short that I can also use on my 4th axis rotary table cubes.

I dont care about the mitee bites dovetail jaws vgroove jaws or anythign else like that, as we cut all our soft jaws and fixtures to hold parts and both vaccum and part fixtures.

one nice thing about them is there vise's I can get that will fit in my vf2ss with out the vise overhanging on each size of the table and crashing into the z column. our kurt double vises we have to bring way forward so they dont hit the z column. my fadal has plenty of room for the kurts the vf2ss does not, granted they work but it over hangs on the front way to much.

replacing all these vises is a ton of cash,I just trying to get more spindle time and less part changing. I got a early 2000 horizontal coming that I will put the kurts on.
 
Dude they're pretty sweet. They're so easy to use and FAST to set up whatever you want. I can go between talon grips, soft jaws, hard jaws, and tube jaws pretty much by just loosening a few screws. The Carvesmart soft jaw setup is really nice because you can either run Carvesmarts jaws with the locating pins for repeat jobs, or you can buy standard counterbore-style jaws off Monster Jaw (or make your own) and bolt them on the opposite side. Most of my parts are made using the Talons for Op1 and soft jaws for Op2.

I think the Ball Locks are now kinda obsolete because the holes for them can now be used for regular bolts and they come with pin holes to align them to a fixture, so you can save all that cost and just grab some countersunk inserts and 1/2"/M12 bolts. That is how I mount mine when running parallel to the T-slots.

The standard mill vise design like Kurts now seems like a legacy item. After touching an Orange I will never have a standard Kurt (or similar) again. I lay my Orange on it's precision ground sides when I need to hold a part sideways. I can but them up against each other precisely. They have a clamp slot running the full length on each side instead of fixed hole locations. The screws don't have thrust bearings that seize or Brinell.

The Oranges are expensive, especially for the double stations. The single station went up in price quite a bit since it's introductory pricing. I also wish the new jaws on the single station 6" were available for the double station vises, though I bet Orange is open to swapping those out if you ask.

I also use the delta jaws and pallets. Very easy to use. I've stopped using them altogether now because I have learned to really dislike pallets. Nothing I do requires them and talons/soft jaws are faster, easier, more repeatable and cheaper. Not a knock on the Orange pallets, I like the idea. I would like to see the pallets available in wider sizes like the other pallets are/were so you could stick an 8" or 10" pallet on a 6" vise.

The M-Lok vises also seem like a very neat design.
 
I bought one for my new machine and will not go back. Firstly, after having a dual station vise I’ll never go back to buying single stations, so much better use of space on the table and the orange price is competitive with other dual station vises. And the orange can still convert to single station when you have a larger part. Everything swaps around very easily, changeovers between configurations is a breeze. Having carvesmart built in is worth any price penalty. Overall there are many little details I appreciate.

I do have two small annoyances.

- So far I’ve found that the integrated mitee bite is basically useless in a dual station configuration because the center jaw isn’t milled with a matching receiver and the height is off from other mitee bite jaws. You can use it in single station mode but the jaw carriers won’t close fully so the smallest stock you can grab is maybe 1.5”. I pretty much wrote those off and got carve smart mitee bite receivers. You could make a custom mitee bite jaw to match, I just haven’t.

- second annoyance is that the center carve smart jaw (on the new version bought five months ago) doesn’t have bolt holes for Kurt pattern jaws. So you’re locked into using carve smart in both stations. Not a huge deal, but if you have a lot of Kurt pattern stuff already it’s rendered useless in conjunction with carve smart.

Having said that, I just switched everything to carve smart for that machine and it’s been great. The softjaws are way more versatile. I often get four plus jobs in a set of jaws (when I know they’re not repeat) because you can go deep and also flip them.
 
Ok I’m sold.

I keep thinking about steering away from the dual station, as I’ve never used them, but i have used two vises on one pallet before, which when it comes down to it is the same thing for smaller parts. That and you only need to indicate one vise straight instead of two. Lord knows I’ve spent way too much time replacing vise jaws.

It’s probably the last investment I can afford to make from my budget. Already bought the powRgrip system, still need to install probing, and I’ve got a barn find CMM that may or may not work, so this is the next best thing before investing tons of money into quick change fixturing.
 
The Orange vises are awesome. If/when you set it up as a single jaw, try setting it up as a reverse vise. If you haven't tried that before, you might find that it works pretty well.
Orange seems to be always improving/providing new products, etc. They actually answer the phone and emails, even provide tech support. What a concept??!!

While they are more expensive at first glance, the lower hassle factor and improved throughput will both make you more money and make life easier. Kind of like a Brother machine. :)
 
They are awesome. I have 3 double stations and it makes everything so flexible. The jaws and carriers are so quick to change setups. They are super quick to pull the jaws off and convert back and forth between double and single stations. It's a little annoying at first figuring out which configurations you need to hold what size parts, but you start to figure it out and then it goes quick. I like having everything ground. I set my first vise in the center of the table and tram it in and then lock it down. Then I use 4" gauge blocks to space the two side vises in. Clamping stock across both vises will get you almost dead nuts on. I might buy or make a ground bar to go even quicker. Quick adjustment and all three are within a few tenths across the table. On top of that, Eric the owner is a nice guy and really willing to help you out if you have questions. I picked mine up in person and was able to chat with him for a bit.

33561411708_e386401022_z.jpg


47437493681_0d9c2f28d1_z.jpg
 
I got two dual stations, and couldn't be happier. Being able to switch between single and double station, made buying the double stations a no brainier. I think the only thing that can top Orange Vises is the 5th Axis rock system, but that's also a whole different price point for a whole system.

As mentioned above in regards to not being able to use the built in mite-bite in dual station mode, I just made some dovetailed jaws for mite bites. Also I then don't have to flip the main jaws around when going from mite-bite to soft jaws. Makes jaw changing a 10 second operation.

I really like being able to flip the vises on their side when needed.
Just this week, I had a 3 OP part.
- OP 1 in Mitebite Dovetails
- OP 2 Softjaws in Dovetails
- OP 3 Softjaws from OP2 with vise on its side.

Really nice to be able to reuse the soft jaws from OP2. (plus go back and forth between OP2 & 3 if needed, and the Jaws locate in the same spot)
 
Vancbiker said:
If my left nut was not already so over-committed for other things I want, I'd give it up for a pair of Orange vises.
Click to expand...

So here’s a question: what are the things in front of the orange vise on your list? That’s what I’m doing now is sorting through my list of want-to-haves versus needs and looking for what has the biggest benefit to the dollar.
 
I bought one of the 17" Double Station Vises. Used it on one or two quick jobs, and didn't like it. It just seemed like I was spending way too much time setting it up and not enough time making parts. Granted, everything I do is limited quantities. I would gladly trade it for a couple new Kurt vises, if only I hadn't thrown away all the packaging material.
 
I have two 17.5" doubles.. love them. I prefer to do as much as possible in dovetails. There are two positions for the back jaw and if you use dovetail hard jaws in the center (thicker), little stuff fits using the back position without a spacer. The hard jaws vary in thickness a thou or so, and there's a couple thou in the center block dowels (probably as good as they an reasonably get). So, it can be a little annoying indicating their location every time you put them in. If I'm not working sub .005", I just throw them on. Soft jaws and talons no issue. There's a lot of different ways to use them so it does take some time to find how you want to use them. Great system.
 
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