[Ken Gastineau]

I started with a Taig mill years ago before they offered ballscrews. It was certainly less scary to learn on than a larger mill, but I didn't like chasing the backlash around with those acme threads and ultimately gave up on doing any meaningful machining with it. I later updgraded my shop with a Tormach 1100 and I feel that it offers a better value than the Taig does for machining metal. That said, I still have the Taig mill and I have been doing some research and joined the Taig Lathe And Mill Owners Club group on Facebook. I was pleasantly surprised to see how people have been upgrading and modding their mills and lathes with ballscrews, 3/4 hp motors, R8 spindles, etc. One fellow has been offering a bigger beefier frame and another guy has created what he calls a Taigmach and uses the Tormach TTS tool system in the R8 spindle mod. I am considering adding ballscrews to my Taig and either using it as a mill or converting to a lathe. Centroid offers a 4 axis Acorn controller with encoder input for $300. Much of my work uses extremely small cutters so higher spindle speeds have been a necessity. I developed a mount on the spindle nose that holds the Taig ER16 spindle and motor giving up to 10,000 rpm. Anyway, people are doing some useful work with Taigs on small parts, but there are dollars involved no matter what path you take.

I like the size and power of the Tormach 1100 over the 770 or 440. If I needed to replace the spindle I would consider installing a high speed spindle kit that they offer. On the other hand I like the power of the stock spindle for when I need to use larger cutters. Using an auxiliary spindle seems to work well for me.

I wish you luck in your expansion. I too had to build up a small business over these last 36 years manufacturing costume jewelry and tabletop accessories. Fortunately I can slow down and semi-retire now, but I look forward to not always having to think about paying the bills with a full blown commercial enterprise.

[jwatte]

If you want to make money with your budget, I would go with Industrial machine like this

It seems like he's making money on fulfilling demand for a particular product, NOT by doing job shop work.
In essence, his choice is "budget machine to do it myself" versus "develop contacts with some low-cost outsourcing house and have them build it." It seems that his own costs is actually lower than outsourcing.

[Portlyinohio]

Burbingus
Is there a reason you recommend not going with the tormach vice ? I haven't seen any complaints or dissatisfaction with them anywhere , but that doesn't mean much , I could just be over looking it .

Austinmachining points out what looks like a decent fadal vmc.
At what looks like might be a decent price .
But I have a whole laundry list of reasons why a Vmc like that isn't for me ...
First and formost I want a brand new machine .
A warranty and customer service gives me a nice warm and fuzzy feeling . I need that .

And there is a real estate issue , I don't have a big shop .
It's a 21x22 garage to be exact and I already have a lot of stuff I want to keep .

I also have no plans on doing production or job shop type of work .

[Portlyinohio]

I've been reconsidering my tooling , And taking the advice to skip the operator set .

I won't trouble you guys with a list , but for that same $1000 I can take care of my immediate tool holding needs and some extra stuff to grow into .

I haven't thought out work holding as well yet , but I'm not seeing any real need to go over board , I think a vice and a part stop for all my first operations , And a few feet of 1x5 aluminum to make fixture plates for second operations will get me off to a good start .

If I go with a tormach vice that still leaves me with $2000 in my initial budget .
With that said , I am very tempted to skip the tormach vice
And go with a pair of premium 4 inch glacern cnc vices .
4 inches , more then suits my needs . And I have a spare 6 inch vice already if I need something bigger .

That still leaves me with $1200 in the kitty ...I am very open to suggestions on things I should have to make my life a bit easier to make the transition to cnc easier

[CL_MotoTech]

Check out Shars vises. They are very nice for the price.

[Portlyinohio]

I agree , I have two shars vices I am using already , a 4 and a 5 inch . I have been more then pleased with them .

I do want a step up in quality though , I bought a 6 inch glacern a year or so ago on eBay because it went cheap .
It's a huge step up in quality , plus I want them to be matched up for bed height , something you can't get from shars .

[CL_MotoTech]

My two 4" Shars vises were very close to each other when I spec'd them on my surface plate. It doesn't really matter for my work. When I have two vises on the table I'm generally doing two parts with two separate work offsets. Generally I just probe the corner of each vise, then hit the Z off the stock. And with my machine where .0015" of backlash is common on X & Y, the vise hardly matters since it's well below that threshold. The Glacern specs are actually worse than the Shars vises, how that pans out in the real world I can't really say, all I know is that my Shars vises were well within spec. I would expect the same from Glacern. If I were buying a vise and expecting better than a Shars vise I'd buy a Kurt, or in my ideal world an Orange Vise. I'm sure vises are like motor oil though, everybody has an opinion and a preference, but nobody can quantitatively justify their choice.

[Portlyinohio]

I think there is a mental aspect involved I call the "bright and shiny"

If you take two functionally identical tools , only one obviously looks nicer then other .
Your more likely to be happier with the bright and shiny tool
Just because it's bright and shiny .

Sadly I find myself being that way , but considering that except for my house this will be the most money I've ever spent , if spending a few extra bucks on bright and shiny makes me feel better , I'll live with it

[routalot]

I think you should be pleased to have a bit of spare money and advise you to hang on to it.I expect that within a couple of weeks of having the new machine you will find things that would make things more efficient or convenient or less messy and if the money is on hand,you will be good to go.

[CL_MotoTech]

I think you should be pleased to have a bit of spare money and advise you to hang on to it.I expect that within a couple of weeks of having the new machine you will find things that would make things more efficient or convenient or less messy and if the money is on hand,you will be good to go.

That's a good piece of advise. I'd probably spend my extra cash on tools and a touch probe or two. Touch probes are invaluable in my setup process, it reduced setup time drastically. Having a spare is good too, because they do get crashed occasionally.

[kstrauss]

Spare cash is always a good thing when starting a new project. Never underestimate how many cutters you'll break before you get everything dialed in!
An additional consideration regarding which vise to get: be sure that Monster Jaws (https://monsterjaws.com/) has soft jaws to fit. You can't make your own for their prices.

[Portlyinohio]

What .. don't spend all my budget now , why that's blasphemy. Spending money is just to much fun .

Whew . Now that that's out of my system .
I for sure don't have any issues with leaving some cash in reserve . It is a rather sound idea .

I'm still giving some careful consideration to tool holding , that's one area I don't want to hamstring myself to start with

I'm also not against spending my entire budget And getting a few things that might just make things easier .
Like a probe or a haimer .

Now don't laugh , but I have a plan on taking care of things like cutting tools , lubricants and the other incidentals I'll need to get started .

For years I've been tossing all my change into 5 gallon buckets , telling myself I'll cash it all in for vacation someday . Well I'm 45 years old and I've still never gone on a vacation .
I've got three buckets nearly full of change , and about two hours drive away there is a bank with a change sorter that doesn't charge to use it .
I don't have a clue how much is there , but about 500 lbs of pennies ,nickels , dimes and quarters has to be be a fairly significant amount .

[kstrauss]

I wouldn't be without my Haimer and probe. Don't forget to include a few spare probe tips. With the latest changes to PP a cheap Chinese ETS (~$100) should be on your shopping list.

Google tells me that a US quarter weighs 5.67g. 500 pounds is about 250,000g so 40,000 quarters or $10,000. A us dime weighs 2.268g or a quarter weighs 2.5 times as much so the same value per pound. I probably made a mistake or two so verify before spending!

[Portlyinohio]

following along with what quarters and dimes weigh I decided to see what nickles and pennies weigh .
But it turns out if you Google how much change weighs you find someone has already done some math .

The average value of 1lb of change is $12
Mine is probably worth less because I tend to spend quarters so I don't get back as much change .
If I go conservative and guess my change runs @ $6 a lb
I should have $3200
Yikes , I'm glad I never tried to add it up before or else I'd have spent it already .
I'd also advise against change as a savings plan , I've been saving it since I moved into my house 23 years ago .
it averages out to something like $139 a year .

Regardless of how much money is actually there it doesn't figure into my initial budget , it's purely for secondary spending on the incidental stuff , my cushion if you please .

The wildhorse probe has already been mentioned , and it seems like it can be used as a tool setter as well.
Any other thoughts or suggestions ?

[CL_MotoTech]

I use the wild horse probe very successfully as a tool height setter.

I don’t recommend it as a touch probe though. It required constant adjustment as a probe for some reason. It’s fairly stable as a tool height setter.

I like the Tormach passive probe. I also have a Drewtronics probe that is quite nice too, it’s cheaper than the Tormach as a I recall. But I achieve really nice results with both.

This is the next probe I’ll be buying - https://www.sorotec.de/shop/3D-Finde...nsor-6411.html

[Portlyinohio]

Ok let me ask this .

Using the tormach passive probe and a haimer as our benchmark .

Which is a beginner going to find better for overall speed and ease of use .

And then which is going to provide better overall accuracy .

[Portlyinohio]

Another question , because I've been a hesitant to call tormach and ask any questions in fear of having to field sales calls .

Anyone have any idea of what kind of lead time I can expect between ordering a machine and it showing up at my door .

And what kind of time can I expect to spend in getting it put together , leveled and trammed in .

My time constraints are , I need at least three weeks to catch up on my current work and try to get a bit ahead .
And I need at least one more week to give the shop a thorough cleaning and re-organise to make room .

[kstrauss]

I think that "it depends". I have a Haimer, the Tormach passive probe and a Renishaw with an experimental homebrew wireless connection. Mostly through habit I use the Haimer for edge/z-offset of stuff held in my vise. I use a DTI in the spindle to very accurately zero x/y in the round pockets that I use in most of my soft jaws and other fixtures. Using a probe is faster than either and probably accurate enough for most everything that I do. However, the probe *seems* to take longer since I'm standing doing nothing while it does its job. People are really silly!

The best accuracy with no need to calibrate is almost certainly using the DTI in pockets and a Moore style chair for edge finding. Use a dial indicator for very accurately setting Z-offset from the surface of your stock. The Haimer is next best followed by the probe. All are probably good enough for Tormach work.

Others will likely disagree with my assessment!

[Advil]

Another question , because I've been a hesitant to call tormach and ask any questions in fear of having to field sales calls .

Anyone have any idea of what kind of lead time I can expect between ordering a machine and it showing up at my door .

And what kind of time can I expect to spend in getting it put together , leveled and trammed in .

My time constraints are , I need at least three weeks to catch up on my current work and try to get a bit ahead .
And I need at least one more week to give the shop a thorough cleaning and re-organise to make room .

At least when I bought my 770 a few years ago, Tormach was anything but high pressure. You have to initiate everything. They're helpful, but they don't act unless you ask first. Just tell them when you want the machine roughly and they'll help you work out the arrival. You may want to get your quote done asap and start the order process up to a month in advance of when you want the machine.

If you are mechanically inclined, you'll have the machine assembled and powered on in a few days. Give yourself a week+ if you are entirely new to CNC machines to start making chips. You'll get their test cut on a wood 2x4 done pretty quick. That's very satisfying when you've never done this before, then the REAL learning starts with feeds and speeds to cut metal etc.

To get it level and trammed in depends entirely on "how level" and "how trammed in" you want it. I spent a couple of days working on level the first time, shimming the machine etc etc until I was close to .001 across all 14" of x and about the same in Y. I had to make a map of the table level at 6 points after each change so I could "see" how the bed was twisting after each change because it does twist.

You can speed the process up a bit if you have a good machinist's level, but you'll likely never use the $100 level again.

[kstrauss]

This is the next probe I’ll be buying - https://www.sorotec.de/shop/3D-Finde...nsor-6411.html

That probe looks interesting although the 0.5 pound (2.5N) Z-axis trigger seems like a lot since I would want to sometimes use it on plastic. Please let us know how it works out.