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DT and DM machine as a general purpose mill...

pbreed

Plastic
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
I have a tormach 1100 mill in my garage...
This is a very old tormach, purchased about three months after Tormach announced them in 2006.

I want to upgrade to something with a tool changer.
And an enclosure so I don't track so mcuh metal into the house....

I have a ceiling height problem...
The HAAS DT-1 is an interesting choice as it fits under my ceiline (0.5" to spare)
Its lower than a mini-mill or any of the used FADAL's I can identify a height for...

99% of what I cut is aluminum...most of my parts are small.

By the time you add Rigid tap and 10000 rpm spindle the DT-1 is the same price as a mini-mill

The DT has more tools (20) and a faster stock spindle (10000 RPM) it seems like both of these would be better for
what I do. Lots of one -off parts where I don't want to have to reconfigure the tools for each job...

How is the DT-1 as a general purpose light duty mill?
 
Did Haas just update a bunch of info on that machine?? 17 amp draw is nothing. That would be a very serious upgrade from a Tormach. You’ll need to understand how 30-taper tends to run differently from all the 40 taper videos smattered on YouTube. Big upgrade over anything a Tormach will do, and fast.

Can you fit the machine through your doorway? If it’s an 84” garage door the selection is going to be limited a bit more. The Speedio (also a 30-taper) I chose for right through, and I’ll be damned if my power bill hasn’t budged with it running.
 
I might get some crap for saying this but I would go with a Cat40 spindle for general machine work. The CUTE little BT30 has its place in a drill tap machine but the Cat40 is a LOT more universal for general work ..

I looked vary close at the DM2 mills before ordering a new vf2ss and well i liked them I needed the full 30" of X travel and the taller Z of the vf2ss machine for a lot of the 4th axis work I do ...

One nice thing about the Haas machines is they run great on Rotary phase converters .. there setup for multi tap in the power Cabinet for input power from like 190V to like 270V . one has to watch the Jap machines in that they seem to all be built for 200V input only, so you have to screw around with transformers to get the power from the US standard of 240V to keep there controls happy.


FYI you can cut your ceiling and box it in were you need the Z to go up .. I fit a VF4SS in my old shop by doing that ...
 
I heavily agree with DDMachine's thoughts on it. It really depends on your budget and what you want to do in the long term. In terms of spindle power, Minimills and SMM are somewhat similar to DT/DM, but their construction is built different. Minimills have better motion control but the machine is built very high up on a welded steel base, whereas a DT/DM is more like a smaller VF with an actual casting.
However even though a DM1 has a cat40 spindle, it's still very much weaker than the cat40 used in a VF or superspeed. There's no replacement for displacement, so the smaller machines are zippy and sexy but a beefier machine just destroys material.
(but then ask yourself how much time will actually be saved with faster bulk roughing, for YOUR particular workpieces)

For general purpose work, all things being equal, you want a VF with an upgraded spindle or a VF superspeed. The only cases where I would suggest starting with a specialized DT or DM is if you spend a lot of time doing these things:
- milling with small diameter tools
- no large diameter drilling or tapping
- all tools have short extensions (physically no longer than 7" in DT/DM)
- the bulk of your machining is spent in high-detail parts and/or high RPM
- you don't want to worry about the rigidity of the smaller machine.

Ultimately you need to analyze your workpieces and figure out what concessions you can get around to save money on the machine's cost. Minimills have a much cheaper starting price which is where most people go since you might be able to a-la carte your way to saving money with a SuperMiniMill instead of a VFSS, DT, DM, etc. But they all have their own concessions since a DT/DM can outshine for secondary operations, or a VF can save a lot of time for bulk roughing.

Anyway, even though I wouldn't personally recommend a DT/DM as a first machine, anything we're talking about on this page is going to be a monumental upgrade from a Tormach or any other hobbyist machine, so we can't say anything is a """BAD""" choice in comparison. It really depends on your parts and what you can afford.
 
How is the DT-1 as a general purpose light duty mill?

We recently purchased DT-1 and use it a lot. We are specializing on developing custom electronics, so we mill mostly aluminum, rarely some steel alloys. We do rigid tapping as well. What I can say is I love this DT-1 machine, it can do virtually anything that fits into its travel limits and it's damn fast! :-)

One regret is the table size on DT-1 which is too small. When we set HRC210 it eats almost all the travel space. Now I know that DT-2 would be a much better option for us as its table is 1.5 times larger.

Regards,
Ruslan.
 
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Fair points made about 40-taper vs. 30-taper. Clearly, everything is significantly bigger in a 40-taper machine.

It really depends on what you intend on making. I'll speak for 30-taper since that is what I have. Not a Haas, rather a Brother Speedio S700X1, but I believe the Haas DT machine specs similarly.

Here is what I'm making this week:

IMG_1065.jpg

It starts out as 7.3" x 6.25" x 1-1/4" 6061. As you can see, there is like 95% metal removal getting to the final part. Out of the total runtime, roughing is ~10%. My little 30-taper removes ~50 in^3 during roughing. The rest of the time is spent on a zillion little finish operations. There are ~30 tools involved, so 30 tool changes. Chip-to-chip tool change time is very significant here.

So, if a 40-taper can rough 2x as fast, it would save ~1.5 minutes on this part. But, 40-taper machines are usually slower changing tools and rapiding than the modern 30-taper machines. Maybe the 40-taper ends up being faster, maybe not.

If, OTOH, you are making deep + large parts where roughing is a significant % of the overall runtime, or you need to regularly swing 3/4" and larger endmills, then 40-taper is better, perhaps even necessary.

Regards.

Mike
 
Hello Mike, just curious, you have a s700 that holds 30 tools?

I have a couple s1000 and love them, they are 21 tools, luckily that
has been more than sufficient to date!
 
I was just on Haas website and there listing the DT1 with 10k spindle and chip auger for $41K
Just wish they would have marked the DM2 down more ...

I wonder what the heck happened with that machine or if I looked at the wrong one. Maybe 2-3 months ago I was looking at those machines and I could have swore that the height requirement was around 110” and the pricing was way higher. Maybe I was looking at the DM’s, but $40k for a DT is pretty dang nice.
 
Haas has been playing with how they market the DT and DM mills this last few month ,,, Before they were all 14K spindle early on then went to 12k and that was all they offered. now there offering a choice in spindle speeds.

I keep looking at the DM2 mill But ordered a VF2SS this last time do to needing more Z for 4th axis parts. before the end of the year I well jump on a brothers or a DM mill . I like the brothers tool changer system a lot better and think there build quality is better. I like the Haas control and would like to stick to a 40 taper and Haas also has a cheap chip auger. Well I bitch about having to clean the return screen on the Haas a lot it is better than having to pull a chip conveyer ever few weeks to clean a tank.
 
I bought a brand new DM2 three months ago.

So far loving it! Working out of a garage making aluminum parts. Went with the DM because of the 40 taper and the DM2 because its the same table size of a VF2 with a smaller footprint machine.

Feel free to message me if you have some specific questions! I'd love to help if I can!
 








 
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