[JRouche]

As to the original Q. Where is that question, let's see, oh, here she is.... "is anyone actually using a tormach mill ? if so how is it doing , any issues or problems"

Not me, cant afford it. Looks like a quality square column mill. If I had the money I might have purchased it. Instead I am in the process of converting a square column mill (enco) myself. I may have that much invested by the time I am done and mine wont be as nice as the Tormach. (chair)

After looking at the photo on their web site I have a question.

On the PCNC1100 is the control panel attached firmly, or permanently to the side of the column?

I am building an enclosure for my mill and could not see reaching through the enclosure door, through all the coolant and chips to hit the E-button, yikes.

Maybe it's a rather large "pendant" removable or "relocate-able". I dont think they would envision reaching through the "danger zone" to E-stop the machine. Too much engineering there to miss that safety hazard.

Maybe I gotta stop machining in my suit, then I wont worry about getting a little coolant on my clothes. :cheers:

Good lookin mill, maybe some day....JRouche

[phil burman]

The Control-box is bolted to the column by four cap head screws. The door seal and the various switches do not look as if they are suitable for "inside dishwasher" conditions. You would have to move the control box, or at least the control panel and isolation switch to another location. This would entail a degree of rewiring. The stepper motors are specially sealed, during manufacture, but I'm not sure about the limit switches capability to withstand the dishwasher.

Regards
Phil

...........

On the PCNC1100 is the control panel attached firmly, or permanently to the side of the column?

I am building an enclosure for my mill and could not see reaching through the enclosure door, through all the coolant and chips to hit the E-button, yikes.

Maybe it's a rather large "pendant" removable or "relocate-able". I dont think they would envision reaching through the "danger zone" to E-stop the machine. Too much engineering there to miss that safety hazard.

.....JRouche

[Ron111]

Phil
I'm also looking at the Tormach and am impressed with the amount of documentation which available on their web page. I'm currently using a shop master for milling aluminum 6061 parts and I use the lathe for both steel and 6061. From memory, I believe the manual said it was capible of cutting 6061 at 18ipm @ 3000 rpm using a 1/2 HSS 2 flute endmill taking a full 1/2 width cuts at 1/2" deep. (I realize it is not recommended to to take depth cuts more than 1/2 of the width of the cutter.)

All of this to say that I'm interested to know what type of cutting performance that I can expect from this machine, because I am making serveral small production runs of a speciality product that I am trying to establish a market in.

I like the way the Tormach is being presented and it would be helpful to me if you could give me a feel on the actual cutting performance with 6061 that you are acheiving.

Thanks for your input

Ron

[phil burman]

Ron, I'm not sure what you mean by performance. Is your interest in maximum removal rates, surface finish, precision or what? I do not use my machine in a production environment so I have not gotten round to checking maximum removal rates. However I did offset chain mill the sides of a 15 mm thick aluminium flange (90 mm square) with a 12 mm HSS 4 fluted end mill in two passes plus a finishing cut of 0.1 mm. Width of cut was of the order of 3 to 5 mm at 450 mm/min (18"/min). It when round as if nothing was there. Dimensionally it was within 0.05mm (both axis) on a digital calliper. See attached photo of a Rotary Table CNC adapter flange.

I would be happy to perform a test if you would like to define one. But go easy on my material stock.

Ther is a short performance video on another thread in this forum


Regards
Phil

Phil
I'm also looking at the Tormach and am impressed with the amount of documentation which available on their web page. I'm currently using a shop master for milling aluminum 6061 parts and I use the lathe for both steel and 6061. From memory, I believe the manual said it was capible of cutting 6061 at 18ipm @ 3000 rpm using a 1/2 HSS 2 flute endmill taking a full 1/2 width cuts at 1/2" deep. (I realize it is not recommended to to take depth cuts more than 1/2 of the width of the cutter.)

All of this to say that I'm interested to know what type of cutting performance that I can expect from this machine, because I am making serveral small production runs of a speciality product that I am trying to establish a market in.

I like the way the Tormach is being presented and it would be helpful to me if you could give me a feel on the actual cutting performance with 6061 that you are acheiving.

Thanks for your input

Ron

[Ron111]

Phil,
I appreciate your offer to run a couple of test to let me know material removal rates. If you have any 6061 laying around and if you could use a 2 flute 1/2 HSS end mill and take a couple of full width (.5 inch) passes say at 18ipm at 3000 rpm maybe start at a depth of .100 inches and gradually increase to a depth of .250. If you can keep the units in inches I won't have to find and dust off the old calculator.

Thanks for your help

Ron

[phil burman]

Ron,

Sorry but I didn’t have a 0.5” 2 flute end mill to hand. The biggest I had was 8 mm (0.315”).

So I ran it as follows:

Material: aluminium 6061
Cutter: 0.315” HSS 2 flute end mill (well used)
Speed: 4,500 rpm
Feed: 19.2 inch/min
Depth of cut: 0.315 inch
Width of cut: 0.315 inch
Material removal rate: 1.9 cu inch/min
Required power: 0.5 HP
Photo of result attached.
This is running the cutter at 60% over the recommended spindle speed and 70% over the recommended feed rate. I currently only have mist coolant but the cut went fine and the machine clearly could handle it with out even breaking into a sweat. I’m not sure how long the cutter would last under these conditions though.

Your requested test was:

Material: aluminium 6061
Cutter: 0.5” HSS 2 flute end mill
Speed: 3000 rpm
Feed: 18 inch/min
Depth of cut: 0.25 inch
Width of cut: 0..5 inch
Material removal rate: 2.25 cu inch/min
Required power: 0.59 HP
This would be running the cutter at 23% over the recommended spindle speed and 15% over the recommended feed rate.

Recommended speeds and feeds came from “ME Consultant software”.

Regards
Phil

Phil,
I appreciate your offer to run a couple of test to let me know material removal rates. If you have any 6061 laying around and if you could use a 2 flute 1/2 HSS end mill and take a couple of full width (.5 inch) passes say at 18ipm at 3000 rpm maybe start at a depth of .100 inches and gradually increase to a depth of .250. If you can keep the units in inches I won't have to find and dust off the old calculator.

Thanks for your help

Ron

[Ron111]

Thanks Phil, it looks like the tormach is quite a work horse and I appreciate your efforts to give me a good feel about the material romoval capabilities.

Ron

[phil burman]

Hi Ron. I would have been disappointed had the machinenot been capable of performing the cut. The motor is 1.5 hp, which means there should be ample power and the machine weighs 1130 lbs. with a relatively small envelope, which means good rigidity. The 640 oz-in stepper seems to also be upto the task. Some people point to the relatively small envelope of the Tormach as a negative feature. However I would consider it a plus if you have no need for a larger one. The often stated concept of biggest is best should be qualified with a review of the envelope to mass ratio and the type of milling you intend to perform.

I'm beginning to sound like an ad for Tormach. However if I were in anyway unhappy with the machine I would not hesitate to let people, and Tormach, know about it.

The issues for me at the moment are the way covers don't completely cover, the paint job chips relatively easily, and I need to get organised with a decent cooling system.

A future issue is going to be automation of the drawbar. An ATC would be nice (well pretty at least) as well as a detachable high seed spindle for the occasional small stuff. I already have the 4th axis hooked up to an 8" rotary table, converted to CNC by me.

Regards
Phil

Thanks Phil, it looks like the tormach is quite a work horse and I appreciate your efforts to give me a good feel about the material romoval capabilities.

Ron

[lazlo]

Is the Tormach PCNC1100 a RF-45 (square-column Mill/Drill) retro-fit? The spindle is in a custom shroud, and the spindle speeds don't match the RF-45, but the base and the square column look identical.

[pstockley]

They are not related in any way.

[lazlo]

Do you have a PCNC1100 Pstockley? Who builds the base machine?

The base happens to have the same table size, table travel, and number of t-slots as the RF-45, and you can see that they've removed the handwheels, leaving the wheel shrouds on the x- and y-axis.

Look at the lower-half of the Grizzy RF-45:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0519/images

and compare with the first page of the PCNC1100 brochure:

http://www.tormach.com/document_libr...C_1100_v1B.pdf

Tormach lists the weight of the PCNC1100 as 1130 lbs. A RF-45 is 800 lbs. Three big servos and the integrated controller is probably another 300 lbs.

I'd love to take a peek behind the black billows on the Z-axis -- I'm curious if it has a square dovetail column

Just curious what machine Tormach starts with...

[pstockley]

Yes I have one and I have seen mills similar to the grizzly. They are obviously of similar design but the Tormach is definitely not based on the same castings. Most square column mills by definition look very similar including commercial machines such as Haas etc. The tormach isn't based on an exsting manual mill and is produced by a commercial CNC vendor in China, not from the same source as most of the manual mills produced.

There is no provision for handwheels at all on the tormach. The steppers connect direct to the ballscrews. The Y axis stepper is at the back, the ballscrew passes through the column. This is totally different to the design on the RF 45.

[pstockley]

Also forgot to mention the Grizzly has a geared drive and the Tormach is belt driven. That is one of the reasons the Tormach can do 4500 rpm and the grizzly cannot.

[pbreed]

The base casting looks different....
I'm not familiar with the RF-45, but the Tormach exploded parts diagram...
See http://www.tormach.com/document_libr...1100-UM-B2.pdf

around page 126

Paul
(My Tormach will be here any day now....
I ordered one of the first batch, but then had them slip my order to the may batch because my home remodel was using up all of my Garage...)

[lazlo]

Thanks Pstockley!

Also forgot to mention the Grizzly has a geared drive and the Tormach is belt driven.

Yep, you can tell they have a different spindle design by the RPM specs.

The Tormarch RPM range is a lot more useful than the RF-45's stock speeds, especially for aluminum.

[SND]

What are you guys using for program to run the Tormach?. If I understand properly the machine actualy comes with a program you can instal in your own computer to make it run without having to by any other cad/cam programs? how good is it? I'm still looking for more feedback on this machine before I buy one.

[pbreed]

I believe that the Tormach software is based on
either Mach2 or Mach3.

Paul

[phil burman]

Grizzly:
- Table size: 9-1/2" x 32-1/4"
- Table travel (longitudinal): 21-5/8"
- Table travel (cross): 7-1/2"
- T-slots: 4 slots, 1/2" studs
- Approximate shipping weight: 625 lbs.

Tormach
Table Size: 31.5" x 9.5"
Travel: 16” x 10” x 16.25” (X, Y, Z)
Table Slots: 3 Slots 5/8”
Weight: 1130 lbs net / 1296 lbs gross

Can't see anything similar apart for the table size.

I very much doubt that three steppers plus the controller and box comes in at much more than 100lb. You would also need to take into account that the Tormach has no gearbox weight.

Regards
Phil

Do you have a PCNC1100 Pstockley? Who builds the base machine?

The base happens to have the same table size, table travel, and number of t-slots as the RF-45, and you can see that they've removed the handwheels, leaving the wheel shrouds on the x- and y-axis.

Look at the lower-half of the Grizzy RF-45:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0519/images

and compare with the first page of the PCNC1100 brochure:

http://www.tormach.com/document_libr...C_1100_v1B.pdf

Tormach lists the weight of the PCNC1100 as 1130 lbs. A RF-45 is 800 lbs. Three big servos and the integrated controller is probably another 300 lbs.

I'd love to take a peek behind the black billows on the Z-axis -- I'm curious if it has a square dovetail column

Just curious what machine Tormach starts with...

[phil burman]

The software that comes with the Tormach is Mach2. Already configured for the machine. If you want to goto Mach3 you can down load it for no extra charge from the "Mach" site, however you will have to set up/configure it yourself.

Regards
Phil

I believe that the Tormach software is based on
either Mach2 or Mach3.

Paul

[lazlo]

Phil,

A 5/8" T-slot uses 1/2" studs -- they have the same T-Slots.
You've also got the X and Y-axis' swapped on the two comparisons.

The Tormach specs say 3 T-Slots, but they have 4 T-slot channels. Either way you count, if you look closely at the photos, the RF-45 table and the PCNC table have the same T-Slot configuration.

So with those corrections, the comparison table looks like:

Grizzly:
Table size: 9-1/2" x 32-1/4"
Table travel: 7-1/2" x 21-5/8"
T-slots: 4 slots, 5/8", 1/2" studs

Tormach
Table Size: 9 1/2" x 31 1/2"
Table Travel: 10" x 16”
Table Slots: 4 slots, 5/8", 1/2" studs

I'm guessing the reason for the Tormach has a shorter X-travel is because they use duplex ballscrew nuts.

In any event, as PStockley explained, the PCNC is based off a Chinese CNC chassis, with Tormach (USA) CNC controls. That explains the similarity of the base machine.