[justgary]

If the TTU is the amount of force required to turn the table with the stepper motor...

So it's "Table Turning Units!"

Speaking of that, we've now turned the table on this thread...

Anybody have their rotary table inspection sheet handy? How many TTUs has yours got?

- Just Gary

[justgary]

Maybe TTU is Chinese for milliamps? Randy

You mean mirriamps?

How about "Tormach Torque Units."

Maybe the "minimum" part refers to the smaller of the two numbers, measured CW and CCW. Maybe it's unclear what the test means, and a table could pass inspection no matter what they wrote down.

- Just Gary

[TT350]

Had to saw a holle in my encloser to see it.
I rubed a little grease in the stamped #' so you can see them.

Thanks Zephyr9900 for the heads up!

[justgary]

TT350 -

That photo is a whole lot better than Randy's tired, fuzzy, little image of his data plate. Maybe his is so old, it's all blurry now.

How do you plan to plug the hole? A simple screwed plate would probably do.

Regards,

- Just Gary

[zephyr9900]

Just Gary, I was going to apologize for the poor quality of my photo, but then I thought, meh, it's free anyway.

I went through all the photos of my machine, and that is literally the only one that shows the dataplate. It's cropped from the first photo I took of my machine after uncrating it. And, although I do have a hole in my enclosure back in that corner, it's enclosed by my toilet-flange tunnel so I can't see the plate now.

TT350, have you just been keeping your main switch on permanently? It is a heck of a reach from the front of your enclosure. Now you can get to it easily!

Edit: Just for you, Just Gary, I took a new photo of my plate, then rectified it as well as I could. To do any better I'd need to do some significant disassembly of my enclosure which won't happen until/when we move.

Randy

[justgary]

Randy -

That's pretty good photochopping. You know I'm just heckling you because you take it so well.

I keep my main power switch on all the time, and just push E-Stop to kill the machine at night. If we have a thunderstorm I unplug the 220 and 110 to completely disconnect the machine.

I also used to block my spindle before I put it do bed, but just this week I have started just shutting the machine down (with the block under the spindle, but not with the spindle down near the block). Somebody posted a question about the little arm at the top of the Z stepper, and someone else replied that it is a Z brake for when the power is off. I don't know how it works or if that is even what that thing is, but my Z axis does not drop with the power off. At all.

Speaking of a heck of a reach, I dropped a small cutter into the chip pan the other night, and it rolled all the way to the back right-hand corner of the machine base. I'll have to crawl in the pan to reach it, and I'd better do it soon or I'll forget it's there.

Regards,

- Just Gary

[justgary]

OK, I just looked at my Rotary Table Inspection Report, and I have 65 TTUs. Anybody else?

- Just Gary

[BlueFin]

Got to thinking about the delivery date VS. the Mfg date, didn't realize mine had been sitting around for so long. 3-08 to 9-08, I guess if it was in the crate most of that time it wouldn't be so bad. Otherwise there is a lot of opportunity for people to be touching it with thier fingers, yuk, getting swine flu and strands of DNA all over the thing before it ends up in my garage. Anyway, it has been running just fine the last few months and I have actually made some money here and there with it. I am working on some branding irons right now which are actually made out of brass.

[TT350]

There's a guy on the Yahoo user groups that put what looks like toilet receptacles and mounted one on the enclosure and the other on the control cabinet and put
a piece of tubing between them.

That’s what I’m planning on doing about the hole.

I’ve been reaching over the machine into the cabinet and
turning it on and off until today!

[zephyr9900]

You know I'm just heckling you because you take it so well.

I'm like Scotty in The Trouble with Tribbles. You can call me old, fuzzy and blurry and it won't bother me (it's mostly true anyway...) But you'd NEVER better say that about my machine!

Randy

[zephyr9900]

There's a guy on the Yahoo user groups that put what looks like toilet receptacles and mounted one on the enclosure and the other on the control cabinet and put a piece of tubing between them.

Err, that would likely be me, TT350. Just one flange though--I just butted the rubber connector against the electronics cabinet to hopefully minimize transmitting vibration into the enclosure.

Randy

[TT350]

You mite be old fuzzy and blurry but that is one slick setup.

Looks like Bluefin has # 1320, do you guys think that there’s 1320 + machines
out there?

The Yahoo group just broke the 500 mark the other day.
I know that it doesn’t mean that all 500 members have a machine but I bet it’s close.

The guy that posted that one could do a search on alibaba has got my wondering
if customs info is public knowledge?

Even with that info there’s machines in other countries, they may or may not come to here first they may be drop shipped from china.

[zephyr9900]

You mite be old fuzzy and blurry but that is one slick setup.

Thank you, but I'm just "standing on the shoulders of giants". Your enclosure was the inspiration for mine, for which I thank you, TT350.

Looks like Bluefin has # 1320, do you guys think that there’s 1320 + machines out there?

No, Tormach rebooted the serial numbers when they introduced the new axis drive (replacing the Protobyte drive which was a bootleg Gecko copy) sometime after #275. They started at (I assume) 1000 for the "4-digit" series.

Randy

[sharpshooter90]

Looks like Bluefin has # 1320, do you guys think that there’s 1320 + machines
out there?


The guy that posted that one could do a search on alibaba has got my wondering
if customs info is public knowledge?

Even with that info there’s machines in other countries, they may or may not come to here first they may be drop shipped from china.

As best as I can see the number is about 10% of the serial #1320. As you said, Alibaba can track the shipments to Tormach, but shipments going to the customers direct would not show up under the Tormach name. My guess is a couple hundred worldwide. US Customs records are public info, but getting to them is a complex job. Alibaba has the connection and charges for it. The actual info comes from the US Dept. of Commerce which uses it to compile statistics on imports/exports and trade deficits etc. Also the DEA, FBI and NSA use it to monitor any suspicious activities- i.e. A one man coffee shop importing 2 containers of Columbian coffee beans a month.
In another thread I cautioned an inventor about the limited market for his ATC idea. Others claimed I was just being negative, but if he had done his research he would have seen that he was investing his time and money in a limited and shrinking market. That project has now come to a stop.

[wvines]

As best as I can see the number is about 10% of the serial #1320.... but getting to them is a complex job. ...
In another thread I ....

In other words: "I don't have a friggin' clue but I had to say something. Now let's change the subject."

[sharpshooter90]

I don't have a friggin' clue but I had to say something. Now let's change the subject."

Sorry you don't have a clue, but if you read the title to this thread, it is precisely the subject.

[TT350]

Well if you have a machine just post your serial #.
That would be a start.

[zephyr9900]

TT350, on July 27, 2008 sharpshooter90 posted

"I got a good offer on my used Quadra Lift model, so I am going to order the Patriot. I thought about the Tormach, but I know I will want a lathe as well, and the patriot is the only combo machine with the capacities I need."

( http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=481402 ) so he's not likely to have a Tormach now unless he's had a major change of heart.

sharpshooter90, I've already shown that Tormach's serial numbers are sequential. Occam's Razor says that it is unlikely to have deliberate gaps in the serials. But as a worst case let's say that in the 1xx and 2xx serial numbers the first digit is the shipment and the xx's are the sequence in that shipment. Even in that case, serials 149 and 286 have been confirmed, which is a minimum of 49+86=135 units even before the 1xxx serial numbers, of which 1055, 1320, 1326 and 136x have been confirmed. And that theoretical numbering scheme doesn't even account for 13 which has also been confirmed. (By "confirmed" I mean specifically mentioned by the owners.)

sharpshooter90, I call bu!!$h!7 on your statement

As best as I can see the number is about 10% of the serial #1320.

and call on you to prove it with specific numbers (or link to the specific data so we can see it ourselves) or back off.

Randy

[sharpshooter90]

sharpshooter90, I've already shown that Tormach's serial numbers are sequential. Occam's Razor says that it is unlikely to have deliberate gaps in the serials.
prove it with specific numbers (or link to the specific data so we can see it ourselves) or back off.

Randy

I based my numbers on the data from www.alibaba.com. You may go there and research the data yourself. As far as Occam's Razor is concerned, that is a purely western idea, and would have no bearing on how the Chinese number their products. I don't really see what difference it makes if there are 10 or 10,000 machines out there- the original thread asks " How Many? ", and lacking any response from Tormach, everyone here is just making estimates based on whatever info they can find.

[BlueFin]

In another thread I cautioned an inventor about the limited market for his ATC idea. Others claimed I was just being negative, but if he had done his research he would have seen that he was investing his time and money in a limited and shrinking market.

I don't normally ever get involved with this sort of conversation, because they don't really ever go anywhere (kind of like a Christian and an Atheist arguing), but "limited market"? That statement has very limited use, everything has a limited market, even Microsoft or Garmin GPS units, or Boeing airliners. Plus there is the reason for execution of idea, not everyone is after the cash generation, some of us have a pure passion to bring an idea to fruition. In the context of "needs" and "wants" I subscribe to the philosophy that there are no "needs". A need simply facilitates the overarching want, I.E. the man wants to stay alive by choice so he needs to eat, but if he starved and died, time would continue on just the same, there is no need for the man to be alive. There is simply no need for anything whatsoever.

Just like P Bear hit hard times I may be looking at a layoff situation with my job. Since I need my job because I want to keep the "home machine shop/mfg business" running it may all be on hold soon. And the "promises" (as you refer to them) I made to everyone by showing off my early protoype will go un-fulfilled. :drowning:

In the context of market limitations there is a balance between development/marketing costs and potential recovery. Would Microsoft produce a product that directly competes with me? Heck no they wouldn't even spend one minute considering it because my potential customer base is only around 100,000 or so and out of that you might only capture 1% or 2%. That wouldn't even pay for the donuts the engineer would eat during the development stage for an infastructure as large as them. But for me that 2% would be a huge success, it would pay for the milling machine and all costs associated with development and also have some left over for a vacation/beer.