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I have encountered a lot of grief when working with steel on my pcnc1100, and found a few key factors besides feeds and speeds that affected the amount of chatter I was experiencing.
Most of the...

I thread-milled a few dozen 1/2-13 holes in A36 with my 1100, and it worked well. I broke one tool by starting with the wrong speeds and feeds, for lack of thread-mill-specific recommendations. ...

As cartographers used to say: "Beyond here, there be dragons!" ;-)

I looked up the specs on the PCNC1100 spindle bearings a while back, and as I recall they are rated for around 8,000 RPM.
As RAD...

I experienced intermittent speed-control problems that sound much like, although not identical, to what the OP is describing. The fault for my machine turned out to be the ribbon cable which...

bevinp, you are actually on to something with your bee-vision proportional-feedback-control idea.

In fact, this exact control concept has already been widely exploited with the use of 'quadrant...

I'm loving this discussion on tip breakage and prevention. I've gone through far too many probe tips myself, and have dreamed of many different improvements that could be so easily incorporated into...

I purchased the previous model of "active probe" from Tormach (in 2008), and it had the same style of kinematics using rods on balls that the current passive probe uses. From what I can tell, the...

I have a Duality lathe that sees little use except as a manual mini-lathe, and I wouldn't mind selling it for the price of a decent replacement mini-lathe, if you really want the extra features of...

Right on, John, this is the best way to go about projects. I'm glad to see you have the kind of thick skin that will allow you to make good use of forums like this, and the graciousness to share...

Wow, I don't visit this forum often these days, but when I do, I'm often struck by the significant degree of personal animosity on display, and the never-ending brand-allegiance spats.
I think some...

Yipee!! I've been staring at this box of parts for my control upgrade sitting near my desk, gathering dust for over a year now, hoping that Tormach or somebody else would beat me to the punch with...

Nobody experiences pullouts with TTS tooling, until they do.

OK, once again my poor choice of words has derailed my point. You can substitute "vibration" for instances of "chatter" in my description of the pullout problem areas, because that is more what I...

I think I did a poor job of expressing myself regarding the effects of machine design and drawbar style on chatter-related pullout. You are correct, the OP and yourself have more similarity between...

I believe that the particular dynamics of the PCNC1100 do in fact contribute to the pullout problems that I have experienced with TTS on my tormach mill. It is quite possible that the machine...

I have had serious problems (unprogrammed-motion-induced crashes) crop up with Mach on my pcnc1100, running on a control PC purchased from and set up by Tormach. The most problematic bug was...

I have used my coaxial indicator to accurately locate and transfer holes between plates. If you keep the workpiece fixed, and make a setup to temporarily and repeatedly locate the patterning part in...

I agree that SprutCAM does seem to have more capabilities than competitive offerings in that price range, but the frustration of all of the constant bug workarounds really wears me down. I skipped...

Sorry to tell you this, but as an owner of a Duality lathe, I have given up on using it for anything except simple manual-mini-lathe duties. If you have small set of part designs in soft material...

I hacked up a post for HSMexpress on the pcnc1100 a couple of years ago, when HSMexpress first came out, based on the first two public posts I could find, which both had bugs. I wrote up some custom...

When God designed the PCNC1100, He made it exactly as it should be, which is not only the best CNC machine that has ever existed, but the best CNC machine that will EVER exist. When He decided it...

I described earlier in this thread how Tormach's own tech support engineers helped me to determine the root-cause of the faults I was experiencing as interactions between Mach and my sound card...

HEY DUMMY, my machine IS BROKEN.
Is it ok with you if I FIX IT?
NO?
WELL, I DON'T CARE!
WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING ABOUT THIS?
IF YOUR MACHINE IS NOT BROKEN, THEN DON'T FIX IT.
IF MY...

hjl4: Please note that I am overall still quite satisfied with my Tormach 1100, and expect to enjoy many more years of useful service as I upgrade the features that I don't like so much. Any machine...

Wow, this discussion sheds a lot of light on individual personalities here.

I am a Tormach PCNC1100 Series II owner, bought new right when the Series II was released, and have done a lot of work...

Sure, although I've gotta warn you that it's kinda hard to read. This particular code was picked quickly from a big messy pile of old code; don't rely on it in to be bug-free! Also note that my...

Ah yes, I forgot to mention how useful a coaxial dial indicator can be also. In fact, I use my Blake co-axial dial indicator probably more than any other X/Y position setting tool, now that I've...

The only significant difference between the Tormach "active" probe and the Tormach passive probe is $1,003.50.
Otherwise, you get some bling, the claim of "sealed electronics", light-up-on-contact...

I work almost entirely with steel on my pcnc1100 these days. As posted above, shallow facemilling works great with sharp inserts, even with TTS. I use a number of "M100 DEX" APKT-insert (Iscar...

Another thing to check is the tightness of your axis motor couplings. I found that my couplings (X+Z) were loose and causing problems not long after getting my machine, and also once subsequently. ...